Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has for providing gender or sex-disaggregated data on antibiotic consumption in England.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) English surveillance programme for antimicrobial utilisation and resistance report and programme aim to develop and maintain robust surveillance systems for monitoring and reporting trends in antimicrobial use and resistance.

Alongside surveillance of antibiotic consumptions trends, the report presents evidence pooled from a literature scoping review investigating the association between elements of health inequalities and risk of antimicrobial prescribing in High Income Countries. Trends were identified for sex, with females having the highest overall antibiotic use except for indications including acne, respiratory tract infections and pharyngitis, amongst others.

The report also presents data on the rate of COVID-19 therapeutics across the country by sex and age. Antibiotic prescribing surveillance data are shared with NHS England and at cross-Government boards on a quarterly basis, as well as being published on the Fingertips tool. UKHSA are committed to identifying surveillance reporting gaps to understand the impact of antimicrobial prescribing and resistance by sex, and on Core20PLUS populations.