Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the World Health Organization publication entitled Tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) together: working paper 5.0: enhancing the focus on gender and equity, published in 2018, including on the upcoming five-year national action plan on antimicrobial resistance for 2024 to 2029.

The Government is aware of the World Health Organization (WHO) paper ‘Tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) together: working paper 5.0: enhancing focus on gender and equity’.

The Government is committed to tackling health inequalities associated with infection, prescribing and levels of antimicrobial resistance. This includes through NHS England’s Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Programme, which works to ensure that effective interventions and services are in place to support both men and women, accounting for differences in their risk levels and how they are impacted by infections that lead to the use of antibiotics.

The UK Health Security Agency’s health inequalities workstream also aims to embed a systematic approach to reducing health inequalities by improving our understanding of AMR health inequalities, developing an engagement strategy, and producing recommendations for public health action.

The Global Antimicrobial Resistance Innovation Fund, which invests in research and development that address AMR for the benefit of people in low- and middle-income countries, considers gender and equity within its portfolio.

The United Kingdom’s next five-year national action plan on AMR, which will be informed by the latest evidence, including findings on health inequalities from the Call for Evidence on AMR which closed in January 2023; WHO publications, key reports, emerging research outputs, and feedback from stakeholders.