Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Tackling antimicrobial resistance 2019–2024: The UK’s five-year national action plan, published on 24 January 2019, what plans he has to fund the (a) design and (b) testing of a new economic model for antibiotics.

The project to develop and test the feasibility of new models that pay companies for antimicrobials based primarily on a heath technology assessment of their value to the National Health Service as opposed to the volumes used, and to share the learning with international stakeholders, is expected to be established by July this year.

The NHS Long Term Plan, published in January this year, makes the commitment to implement the human health aspects of ‘Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance (2019-2024): the UK’s five-year national action plan’. The project will be led by a central project team resourced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and NHS England and the National Institute for Health Research Policy Research Programme is considering research to support the process.