Antibiotics
(asked on 16th July 2015) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps (a) his Department, (b) Public Health England and (c) NHS England are taking to improve antibiotic stewardship and promote the optimal prescribing of antibiotics in the secondary and primary care settings.
The Department, Public Health England, NHS England and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate is addressing antibiotic stewardship through the cross Government UK 5 Year Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy, published in 2013.
One of the seven key areas for action is antibiotic stewardship and optimised prescribing. The Government’s annual report and implementation plan for the strategy, which was published in December 2014, sets out the key actions being undertaken to optimise the prescribing of antibiotics. This includes the use of antimicrobial prescribing quality measures aimed at reducing total antibiotic prescribing and encouraging the use of narrow spectrum antibiotics in both primary and secondary care. The annual report and implementation plan is available at: