Cutting back on antibiotics ‘does not put patients at risk’

SLASHING antibiotic prescriptions does not put patients at any greater risk of deadly infections, research shows.

The study of four million patients found that surgeries which doled out the fewest pills did not have any higher rates of meningitis or other serious illnesses.

The findings will add to calls for GPs to slash prescriptions over concerns they are fuelling a rise of deadly superbugs.

Antibiotics have been so widely used that many of the bacteria they are meant to treat have evolved to become immune.

The World Health Organization warned two years ago that the crisis would lead to scratches becoming deadly. And in May the Government’s superbugs adviser Lord O’Neill called for doctors to be banned from prescribing antibiotics until they had carried out a test proving their need.

Recently, GPs were issued with strict guidelines telling them not to hand out pills for coughs and colds while patients are being told not to be too pushy.

The study, by King’s College London researchers and published in the BMJ, investigated whether it was safe for doctors to cut antibiotics for coughs, colds and ear infections.

It found that if an average-sized surgery of 7,000 patients cut prescriptions by 10 per cent, there would only be one extra case of pneumonia in a year.

Patients were also at slightly higher risk of a rare complication of sore throats called a peritonsillar abscess but both this and pneumonia are easily treatable.

Researchers also found no evidence that patients at low prescribing surgeries were at any higher risk of meningitis or other deadly infections of the lungs. Lead author Professor Martin Gulliford said: ‘Our results suggest that, if antibiotics are not taken, this should carry no increased risk of more serious complications.

‘General practices prescribing fewer antibiotics may have slightly higher rates of pneumonia and peritonsillar abscess but even a substantial reduction in antibiotic prescribing may be associated with only a small increase in the numbers of cases.’

Recent NHS figures showed GPs are now dishing out 2.7 million fewer antibiotics a year following the new guidelines.

The number of pills prescribed in England fell by 7.3 per cent in the last year, from 37 million in 2014/15 to 34.3 million in 2015/16.

The Department of Health said: ‘Antibiotics cannot treat viral infections like common coughs and colds and this study should help give GPs the confidence to prescribe appropriately.’