Quarter of prescriptions for antibiotics ‘not necessary’

A QUARTER of antibiotics prescribed by GPs are not needed, Britain’s top doctor has warned.

Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, said it was ‘difficult for doctors to refuse’ to give patients what they wanted.

GPs doling out too many drugs, particularly for complaints where they are not needed, has meant bacteria evolve to become resistant to the treatments.

Superbugs are already breeding at a rapid rate, with increasing numbers of germs evolving to become untreatable with what were previously effective drugs.

Dame Sally has repeatedly warned of a ‘post-antibiotic apocalypse’ and ‘the end of modern medicine’. Speaking to the BBC yesterday, she said: ‘GPs do a good job but if a patient is demanding an antibiotic – without a good diagnostic, and we need new good diagnostics – it’s difficult for doctors to refuse.

‘Yet antibiotics do not work for flu, they do not work for viruses, coughs, colds, so probably one in three or one in four antibiotic prescriptions are not needed.’

According to NHS watchdog NICE, about ten million of the 40million antibiotics prescriptions issued by GPs in England each year are unnecessary.

MPs on the Commons science and technology committee have accused family doctors of needlessly doling out antibiotics to ‘placate’ patients.