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ESPAUR reveals antibiotic consumption data

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ESPAUR reveals antibiotic consumption data

The English surveillance programme for antimicrobial utilisation and resistance (ESPAUR) Report 2017, which as just been published, shows that total consumption of antibiotics continues its downward trend with a -1% reduction between 2015 and 2016.

The five-year trend of consumption has shown a decline of -5.1% from 22.6 to 21.4 defined daily dose (DDD) per 1000 inhabitants per day. Antibiotic prescribing is most common in the GP setting where consumption, measured in both DDD (-8.1%), and items (-13.9%), has declined since 2012.

Although prescribing in other community settings continues to increase (25% between 2012 and 2016), the report maintains that it remains a relatively small prescribing setting (3.4% of total prescribing).

Antibiotic consumption has increased within secondary care, specifically inpatients over the last five years, which has increased from 2.37 to 2.43 DDD since 2015 (2.3).

Penicillins (45.0 %), tetracyclines (22.1%) and macrolides (14.8%) remain the most common drug classes prescribed in 2016. Over the period 2012 to 2016 a decreasing trend of consumption was observed for penicillins, cephalosporins, quinolones, macrolides, sulfonamides and trimethoprim. An increased trend was observed for nitrofurantoin, glycopeptides and daptomycin.

The report recommends for primary care an antibiotic prescribing reduction target of 10% of antibiotic prescriptions per 1000 population by 20/2021, in order to improve future measures of inappropriate prescribing.

You can access the full report here.

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