1 in 5 antibiotic prescriptions go to patients who don’t need them
‘We need to go further’
FAMILY doctors are fuelling the superbugs crisis with up to eight million inappropriate antibiotics prescriptions a year, according to a report today.
It reveals that one in five antibiotics prescriptions given out by GPs in England are to patients who do not need them.
Overuse of antibiotics means many germs have evolved to resist them and some dangerous strains have become untreatable. The more antibiotics are used, the stronger superbugs become.
Yet doctors continue to hand out antibiotics for minor conditions against which they do not even work.
Nearly a third of patients registered with a GP in England were given antibiotics at least once a year, yet in 20 per cent of cases they were unnecessary, the study from Public Health England reveals.
The researchers, who monitored 349 GP practices between 2013 and 2015, found 41 per cent of patients with a cough were given antibiotics.
Experts estimate only 10 per cent of coughs will benefit from antibiotics – the rest are caused by viruses or irritation against which the drugs do not work.
For bronchitis, 82 per cent of patients were given antibiotics, of whom only 13 per cent would have benefited.
And 59 per cent of those with sore throats were given antibiotics when only 13 per cent should have received them.
If national prescriptions data reflect the findings, published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, it suggests nearly eight million of the 38.6million antibiotics given out by GPs in England each year are not required.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said last night: ‘Drug-resistant infections are one of the biggest threats to modern medicine and inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics is only exacerbating this problem.
‘We are leading the world in our response – since 2012, antibiotics prescribing in England is down by 5 per cent.
‘But we need to go further and faster otherwise we risk a world where superbugs kill more people a year than cancer and routine operations become too dangerous.’
The Government has pledged to cut inappropriate prescriptions in half by 2020.
Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, wrote in a commentary article in the same journal: ‘The fact that the UK consumes 1.9 times as many antibiotics in primary care as the Netherlands – a country with similar climate, demographics and wealth – indicates overuse in the UK and suggests a 20 per cent rate of inappropriate prescribing is likely to be a conserv- ative estimate.’ Professor Paul Cosford, medical director of Public Health England, said: ‘Using antibiotics when you don’t need them threatens their long-term effectiveness and we all have a part to play to ensure they continue to help us.
‘This publication highlights the role GPs can play and I urge all practices to look at ways they can reduce inappropriate prescribing levels to help make sure the antibiotics that save lives today can save lives tomorrow.’
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: ‘If GPs do prescribe antibiotics, it is because, in their expert opinion, they are the most appropriate treatment available.
‘However, we are coming under considerable pressure from some patients who need to understand that antibiotics are not a “catch all” for every illness.
‘Today’s figures are extremely disappointing but they must not be used as an excuse for criticising GPs who are working their hardest to reduce antibiotic prescribing, whilst grappling with countless other workload pressures and a shortage of GPs.’