March 28, 2024

Nearly 9,000 GPs are warned they are dishing out too many antibiotics

Thousands of GPs have been urged to stop dishing out antibiotics amid growing fears over the dangers of superbugs.

The Chief Medical Officer penned personal letters to approximately 8,800 doctors to warn they are over-prescribing the crucial drugs.

Antibiotic resistance is considered one of the biggest threats to humanity and has been cited as severe as terrorism andglobal warming.

Desperate health chiefs have taken the matters into their own hands over concerns once harmless bugs could mutate and become killers.

Professor Dame Sally Davies sends the letters out to certain GPs each year – but this is the largest batch that has even been posted across the country.

Professor Dame Sally Davies sends the letters out to certain GPs each year - but this is the largest batch that has even been posted across the country

Professor Dame Sally Davies sends the letters out to certain GPs each year – but this is the largest batch that has even been posted across the country

The Chief Medical Officer penned letters to approximately 8,800 doctors to warn they are over-prescribing the crucial drugs

Angry doctors today warned that they are being held to a ‘completely unrealistic expectation’ because of the NHS drive to reduce sepsis rates.

More than 6,000 GPs received the letter because their practice had some of the highest rates of antibiotic prescriptions.

Dame Sally has sent out the letter to the 20 per cent of practices with the worst prescription rates annually.

The move, first tested in 2014, helped slash prescribing rates by around 3. 3 per cent in GP practices targeted,Pulsereports.

Health chiefs then rolled out the programme as part of a national drive to help cut rates after the trial proved successful.

However, nearly 2,400 additional GPs have received the letter this year in order to cut down prescription rates even further.

They were sent them because their surgery has seen antibiotic prescription rates soar by at least four per cent in a year.

WHAT IS ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE?

Antibiotics have been doled out unnecessarily by GPs and hospital staff for decades, fueling once harmless bacteria to become superbugs.

The World Health Organization has previously warned if nothing is done the world was headed for a ‘post-antibiotic’ era.

It claimed common infections, such as chlamydia, will become killers without immediate answers to the growing crisis.

Bacteria can become drug resistant when people take incorrect doses of antibiotics, or they are given out unnecessarily.

Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies claimed in 2016 that the threat of antibiotic resistance is as severe as terrorism.

Figures estimate that superbugs will kill ten million people each year by 2050, with patients succumbing to once harmless bugs.

Around 700,000 people already die yearly due to drug-resistant infections including tuberculosis (TB), HIV and malaria across the world.

Concerns have repeatedly been raised that medicine will be taken back to the ‘dark ages’ if antibiotics are rendered ineffective in the coming years.

In addition to existing drugs becoming less effective, there have only been one or two new antibiotics developed in the last 30 years.

In September, the World Health Organisation warned antibiotics are ‘running out’ as a report found a ‘serious lack’ of new drugs in the development pipeline.

Without antibiotics, caesarean sections, cancer treatments and hip replacements would also become incredibly ‘risky’, it was said at the time.

Dr Zishan Syed, of the Local Medical Committee for West Kent, told Pulse of his anger towards the move.

He said: ‘Frequently experts who have little experience of frontline pressures of general practice blame GPs for “high rates” of antibiotics. ’

Dr Syed added that the same experts ‘conveniently ignore the drive to prescribe to reduce sepsis rates’.

Government officials began a drive to combat sepsis, which kills roughly 44,000 people each year in the UK, three years ago.

But GPs have repeatedly voiced concerns that sepsis is notoriously difficult to spot until it has spread throughout the body.

As a result, many doctors have dished out antibiotics to patients they suspect are battling the violent immune response to an infection.

A Public Health England spokesperson said: ‘We hope the letters will respectfully support GPs to improve their antibiotic stewardship. ’

They added that antimicrobial resistance – the mutations of bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms – is an issue of serious concern.

Antibiotics have been doled out unnecessarily by GPs and hospital staff for decades, fueling once harmless bacteria to become superbugs.

The World Health Organization previously stated that if nothing is done to combat the problem then the world was headed for a ‘post-antibiotic’ era.

It claimed common infections, such as chlamydia, will become killers without immediate answers to the growing crisis.

Bacteria can become drug resistant when people take incorrect doses of antibiotics, or they are given out unnecessarily.

England’s chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies claimed in 2016 that the threat of antibiotic resistance is as severe as terrorism.

Figures estimate that superbugs will kill ten million people each year by 2050, with patients succumbing to once harmless bugs.

Around 700,000 people already die yearly due to drug-resistant infections including tuberculosis (TB), HIV and malaria across the world.

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