Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans Public Health England has to update its guidance on the diagnosis of urinary tract infections to reflect changes in remote diagnostic techniques.

The current Public Health England (PHE) diagnostic urinary tract infection guidance features a diagnostic flowchart for over 65 year olds, which can be followed during remote consultation such as telephone or video consultations and does not recommend urine dipsticks.

The flowchart for under 65 year olds encourages diagnosis based on three symptoms that can be assessed remotely. Current guidance advises that patients with only one of these are tested using a urine dipstick, this could be facilitated by patients providing a urine sample from home for testing.

The guidance advises that clinicians should consider in patients with milder symptoms a back-up antibiotic prescription with appropriate pain relief. This would reduce the need for patients to attend the surgery. This guidance was last updated in October 2020 and will be reviewed again in November 2021. The recently updated guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/urinary-tract-infection-diagnosis

PHE is collaborating with the Royal College of General Practitioners to develop training materials on antibiotic prescribing in remote consultations.