Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure the accurate prescription of antibiotics to patients.

In response to Lord O’Neill’s Independent Review on antimicrobial resistance, we have stated our ambition to halve inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics by 2020/21.

To achieve these reductions, a Quality Premium is focused on driving down inappropriate prescribing in primary care and a Commissioning for Quality and Innovation Scheme is in place to incentivise appropriate prescribing in secondary care.

NHS England is leading programmes both to deliver the prescribing ambition and improve the use of diagnostics.