Hot on the heels of the release of the recent NHS Improvement figures – which revealed that the number of antibiotics prescribed by GPs is down by over 2.6 million in one year alone – the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has issued a warning against complacency in the sector.
Dr Maureen Baker, Chair of the RCGP, said, ‘These figures show that healthcare professionals across the UK are taking our warnings about growing resistance to antibiotics, and its terrible consequences, seriously and are working hard to address them.
‘Such a significant drop in prescribing shows that the work the college is doing to support appropriate prescribing and urge healthcare professionals to say ‘no’ is taking effect, despite the pressure GPs often face from patients to prescribe antibiotics.
‘However, we can’t be complacent. We all have a responsibility to curb this dangerous growing resistance to what are excellent and life-saving drugs when prescribed appropriately.
‘It is not only the healthcare sector that needs to play its part in reducing antibiotics prescribing – change needs to take place in agriculture and to tackle the overuse of drugs in farming.
‘Ultimately we need more investment in new drugs – we haven’t seen a new strain of antibiotic in over 25 years – so that we do have an arsenal of medication that will be able to treat emerging and future diseases, and keep our patients safe.
‘But this won’t happen overnight and in the meantime, we need to continue to work together to make the public realise that prescribing antibiotics is not always the answer to treating minor, self-limiting illness.
‘The RCGP has highlighted the challenge that we face through resistance to antibiotics and we have developed the TARGET antibiotics toolkit, with Public Health England, to support GPs in the appropriate prescribing of antibiotics.’
