Why antibiotic overuse matters

“If antibiotics no longer work we’ll have to rediscover how to treat infections surgically”, he warned.

Professor Mark Baker, Nice director of the centre for clinical practice, said doctors must be held to account for giving in to patient demands.

“It’s entrenched in our society”, he said. In some cases, they suggest that doctors should be referred to the General Medical Council for issuing “too many” prescriptions, meaning they could have their power to practise as a doctor revoked.

“The guideline therefore recommends that prescribers take time to discuss with patients the likely nature of their condition, the benefits and harms of immediate antimicrobial prescribing, alternative options such as watchful waiting and/or delayed prescribing and why prescribing an antimicrobial may not be the best option for them”.

Your doctor should only prescribe antibiotics when you need them, for example for a kidney infection or pneumonia.

A survey last year suggested more than a quarter of doctors prescribed antibiotics even when they were not sure they were medically necessary, and nine in 10 felt under pressure from patients to prescribe them.

‘If we don’t do it now then we’ll have to rethink the whole basis of medicine because we’ve spent 60 years assuming that most infections will be cured by antibiotic drugs, ‘ he told a briefing in central London.

“For the relatively small number who are less disciplined, first we need to identify them, and that’s what today’s guidance deals with, and secondly I think there need to be processes locally to deal with them and make sure that either through education or other sanction that they behave in the same way as those who practice sensibly”.

Nice is publishing radical guidelines that say doctors must say no to pushy patients who want antibiotics for unsuitable illnesses such as colds.

But the Royal College of Global Positioning System hit back at suggestions doctors should be hauled before the GMC. Although a new infectious disease has been discovered almost every year over the past 30 years, very few new antibiotics have been developed. This means existing antibiotics are used to treat an ever greater variety of infections and infectious diseases.

His comments come with a renewed attempt by the Institute to secure more effective antimicrobial stewardship across the country, with new guidelines for healthcare professionals and commissioners designed to cut antibiotic prescribing by 25%. Infections can evolve and become resistant to existing medicines.

Dr Tessa Lewis, vice chair of the Guideline Development Group, explains in a statement: “The more we use antibiotics, the less effective they become”.

UK doctors are filling out 10m unnecessary prescriptions for antibiotics every year, contributing to the rising threat of resistance to critical antimicrobial drugs, according to NICE.

“If this were to happen, we would be looking to the General Medical Council to support any GP or other health professional who finds themselves on the receiving end of complaints or criticism about decisions made over the prescribing of antibiotics”. Nationally 41.6m antibiotic prescriptions were issued in 2013/ 14 at a cost of €270m.

The Institute says if its latest guidance is properly implemented it could slash yearly antibiotic prescriptions by 10 million.