Cut back on antibiotics, doctors warned

NEARLY 9,000 doctors have been warned they are prescribing too many antibiotics.

The Chief Medical Officer has sent the personalised letters to tell doctors they are overprescribing the drugs.

Professor Dame Sally Davies wrote to GPs at practices with the top 20 per cent of prescribing rates and others whose numbers have increased by 4 per cent or more in a year. In them, she tells the doctor that ‘80 per cent of practices in your area prescribe fewer antibiotics per head than yours’.

Antibiotic resistance is a growing global crisis which has been cited as similar to terrorism in its threat to humanity.

Health leaders have warned that overprescribing means bacteria are evolving to become immune to the drugs.

The letter said that reducing unnecessary prescriptions of antibiotics ‘may help prevent a public health catastrophe’.

Public Health England told GP magazine Pulse that it was designed to encourage the correct prescribing of the drugs.