GP antibiotic prescriptions fall by 2.6m in last year

GPs have been able to cut down the number of antibiotic prescriptions they give out by 2.6 million in only a year, according to a new report from NHS Improvement.

This comes as a result of the work of the NHS Improvement Patient Safety Team in helping GPs in the NHS to reduce number of instances in which patients are prescribed antibiotics unnecessarily, in order to minimise the development of antimicrobial resistance.

Having worked with Public Health England and NHS England to set goals and share data on antibiotic prescribing to encourage improvements, it was revealed that an overall reduction in antibiotic prescriptions of 7.3 percent has been seen in the last year.

This significantly exceeded the one percent reduction target set for the NHS to cut down the use of antibiotics for infections where they are not usually required, or for conditions where antibiotics do not work.

Meanwhile, the unnecessary use of broad-spectrum antibiotics – reserved for the treatment of serious infections – has been reduced by 16 percent.

Dr Mike Durkin, national director for patient safety at NHS Improvement, said: "This fantastic result achieved in just one year is testament to the huge efforts of GPs, pharmacists and local commissioners."