Antibiotics
NICE Antimicrobial Prescribing Guidelines: https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/our-programmes/nice-guidance/antimicrobial-prescribing-guidelines
Public Health England Primary Care guidance: diagnosing and managing infections: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/primary-care-guidance-diagnosing-and-managing-infections
Antibiotic Guardian Campaign
Public Health England (PHE) established the Antibiotic Guardian campaign to help protect antibiotics and improve knowledge about antibiotic resistance. This campaign supports the UK 5 Year Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy 2013 to 2018, which sets out actions to slow the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance.
The campaign, which takes a One Health approach, calls on everyone in the UK (the public, animal and human healthcare communities) to become Antibiotic Guardians by choosing one simple pledge about how they will make better use of these vital medicines.
UK 5 Year Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy 2013 to 2018
This strategy aims to slow the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance by focusing activities around 3 strategic aims:
1. Improve the knowledge and understanding of antimicrobial resistance
2. Conserve and steward the effectiveness of existing treatments
3. Stimulate the development of new antibiotics, diagnostics and novel therapies
Antibiotic Prescribing Quality Premium 2016/17
The 2016/17 antimicrobial resistance Quality Premium indicator builds on the 2015/16 Quality Premium which nationally, between April and December 2015, contributed towards 2 million fewer antibiotic prescriptions dispensed, compared to the same period the previous year, a 7.9% reduction.
Antimicrobial prescribing is worth 10% of the total Quality Premium for 2016/17[1]. The Quality Premium measure consists of two parts (each worth 50% of the payment available for this indicator):
Part a) reduction in the number of antibiotics prescribed in primary care
Part b) reduction in the proportion of broad spectrum antibiotics prescribed in primary care
NICE Guideline: Antimicrobial stewardship: systems and processes for effective antimicrobial medicine use
‘Antimicrobial stewardship: systems and processes for effective antimicrobial use’ (NG15) provides good practice recommendations on systems and processes for the effective use of antimicrobials. The guideline is aimed at all health and social care practitioners (including GPs, dentists, pharmacists and community nurses), commissioning and provider organisations, and aims to reduce inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics.
The main recommendations are designed to promote and monitor sensible antimicrobial use through stewardship teams to review prescribing and resistance data and to provide feedback, education, and training to prescribers. Specific guidance is given on clinical assessment and documentation of diagnosis, obtaining microbiological samples, delayed prescribing, and taking time to discuss with patients the likely cause of their symptoms.