Antibiotics and daily practice

The pace of publicly available information on antibiotic resistant microorganisms has increased even in the time between writing the first and second parts of this series, with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) publishing guidelines about the effective use of antimicrobials and calling on healthcare professionals to help curb the inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics. In 2014, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, warned that: ‘We are looking at an almost unthinkable scenario where antibiotics no longer work and we are cast back into the dark ages of medicine where treatable infections and injuries will kill once again.’

But, despite this awareness of the dangers of antibiotic overuse, figures suggest that around 10m antibiotic prescriptions – out of the total of 42m given each year – are inappropriate. Additionally, patients have been criticised for having an ‘addiction’ to them and doctors have been accused of being either too keen to prescribe them or too rapidly caving in to patient demand. An important part of the government's programme is to now focus on patient education to try to explain when antibiotics are not the appropriate treatment.