Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether PHE plans to update its guidance on UTIs to recommend the use of a dipstick to diagnose UTI patients with suggestive symptoms and to reflect Scotland’s guidance SIGN 88: Management of suspected bacterial urinary tract infection in adults.

The Public Health England (PHE) diagnostic urinary tract infection (UTI) guidance was last updated in October 2020 and will be reviewed again in November 2021. The current guidance is available at the following link:

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

PHE recommends dipstick testing in patients with one or fewer of the key UTI diagnostic symptoms (new nocturia, dysuria, or cloudy urine). The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network approach recommends using dipsticks in a slightly larger subset of patients. PHE will keep the emerging evidence on dipstick use within UTI diagnosis under review in order to inform future guidance updates.