FAMILY doctors in Alton and among those in North Hampshire who are leading the way in an effort to crack down on excessive prescribing of antibiotics.

GP practices which are members of North Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group have delivered the greatest improvement in antibiotic prescribing rates in the Wessex region, which covers Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight, latest figures show.

The reduction is a key part of a wider national initiative to stop harmful infections developing resistance to antibiotics. Progress across the country was reflected in figures published recently by NHS England.

In 2015/16, the clinical commissioning group’s 19 member practices issued 120,137 prescriptions for oral antibiotics – down 10,140 from the previous year’s figure of 130,277 and a reduction of 7.78% compared to the national target of one per cent.

The clinical commissioning group is seen to be the best performing in the Wessex area, with Southampton following on closely behind on antibiotic items.

Dr Philip Hiorns, the group’s clinical lead for medicines management, said: “In a recent report, the Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Dame Sally Davies, warns that around 50,000 lives are lost each year across Europe and the United States to antibiotic resistant infections.

“In this country the vast majority of prescriptions for antibiotics are prescribed by GPs so we have a key role to play in eliminating unnecessary prescribing using our clinical judgement.

“It’s also important that we help to educate our patients so that they understand for many illnesses, for example flu or other viral infections, antibiotics will not help.”

Prescriptions for broad-spectrum antibiotics – drugs that should be reserved for tackling the most serious, hard-to-treat bacterial infections – went down by 19.12 per cent, from 10,431 prescriptions in 2014-15 to 8,347 prescriptions the following year. The target had been a 10 per cent reduction.

Alma Kilgarriff, the clinical commissioning group’s head of medicines management, said the improvement was a result of a good working partnership between her team and local GPs.

“We have made great progress this year, mainly through excellent engagement, but there is no room for complacency,” she said.

“One of the most important things we have to do is to improve awareness among our patients and the public about when it’s appropriate for them to be prescribed and when it isn’t, and why it’s important that we do everything we can to only prescribe antibiotics when they are absolutely necessary.”

Speaking on behalf of Chawton Park Surgery in Alton, Dr Nicky White said: “We are ensuring, led by our antibiotic guardian Dr Matt de Quincey, that we only prescribe antibiotics appropriately and would ask our patients to get well soon without antibiotics.

“We know that viral infections, including flu, are not helped by antibiotics and many bacterial infections will heal themselves without treatment.”

He added: We have information on treating infections without antibiotics on our website and leaflets are available at the surgery.”