New NICE guidance issued to tackle over-prescription of antibiotics

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published new guidance that aims to help medical staff promote and monitor the sensible use of antibiotics.

It highlights the need for local antimicrobial stewardship programmes and recommends setting up multidisciplinary antimicrobial stewardship teams working across all care settings.

These teams would be empowered to review prescription and resistance data frequently, working with prescribers to understand the reasons for very high, increasing or very low volumes of antimicrobial prescribing, as well as providing feedback and assistance.

The aim would be to combat the overuse of these therapies and the subsequent development of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

Professor Mark Baker, director of the centre for clinical practice at NICE, said: "We need to encourage an open and transparent culture that allows health professionals to question antimicrobial prescribing practices of colleagues when these are not in line with local and national guidelines and no reason is documented."

Overall antibiotic prescribing in England has been steadily increasing over several years, with nine out of ten GPs saying they feel pressured to prescribe antibiotics, while 97 percent of patients who ask for these therapies receive them.