Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce the concentration of antibiotics in UK rivers.

The United Kingdom’s national action plan for antimicrobial resistance (AMR), published on 24 January 2019, takes a fully integrated and comprehensive One-Health approach for tackling AMR, and includes challenging five-year commitments across human and animal health, agriculture, the environment and food.

Without more research into AMR in the environment we cannot design effective interventions to minimise risk and protect public health, food production and natural ecosystems. The national action plan therefore includes commitments to deepen our understanding about AMR in the environment, including a specific commitment to explore the establishment of a river catchment-based research programme with clear standards for sample collection, analysis and review, with the aim of delivering AMR monitoring data that can be used to evaluate existing management interventions and inform new policy initiatives.

The Environment Agency is working with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and water companies to undertake an extensive programme of investigations to assess a wide range of chemicals entering rivers through wastewater treatment works. As part of this programme, levels of four antibiotics have been monitored in treated sewage effluent in order to quantify levels. The choice of antibiotics was based on the levels of prescription and environmental toxicity studies. Outputs will inform the development of future policy and regulatory decisions.

The Department is establishing a UK AMR national action plan delivery board which will drive and oversee delivery of this work.