GP bashing not the answer to antibiotic overprescribing, professor tells summit

The NHS should be made to cut total consumption of antibiotics to 2010 levels, under binding new targets, medical experts have said.

Leading professional bodies said that halting the “relentless” rise of antimicrobial resistance would require reductions in antibiotic use of around 1% a year over the next few years. They called for urgent action across the health system to change the culture of antibiotic prescribing and educate patients to alter their thinking about the drugs.

A summit on antimicrobial resistance was held in London at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society on 6 November. The society and four other bodies—the UK Faculty of Public Health, Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Nursing, and Royal College of General Practitioners—said that providers of care should be held to account for their “antimicrobial stewardship.”

Nigel Mathers, honorary secretary of the Royal College of GPs, said that people had developed a “worrying reliance on antibiotics, and many patients now saw them as a cure all. “We need to do everything we can to prevent resistance …