Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether all blood assay results showing infection or resistance to antibiotics go onto a national register.

Hospital microbiology laboratories routinely record the results of testing bacteria isolated from blood for susceptibility or resistance to antibiotics. Since 1989, Public Health England (and its predecessors, the Public Health Laboratory Service and the Health Protection Agency) have requested that laboratories submit their stored data on resistance in bacteria isolated from blood to a national database called Second Generation Surveillance System (SGSS). Currently, 98% of hospital laboratories submit their antimicrobial resistance data.