Combatting antimicrobial resistance, the UK’s second five-year national action plan continues to promote optimal use of antimicrobials in humans to ensure safe and effective patient care by strengthening antimicrobial stewardship programmes. There is also an ambition to reduce UK antimicrobial use by 5% by 2029, and to prevent any increase in Gram-negative blood stream infections from a 2019/2020 baseline.
Optimising the management of common infections in primary care supports delivery of these key requirements, and NICE antimicrobial stewardship guidance provides evidence-based recommendations for antimicrobial prescribing for common infections.
The NHS Pharmacy First service launched on 31 January 2024, enabling patients to access care from community pharmacies for seven common infections.
The Pharmacy First antimicrobial stewardship dashboard reports Pharmacy First consultation activity at a population level for all 42 NHS Integrated Care Boards and is intended to support Integrated Care Board antimicrobial stewardship programmes.
The dashboard includes a range of comparators relating to Pharmacy First consultation activity, including consultation outcome, consultation type, and medicines supplied for each of the seven common infections and includes a comparator reporting consultation activity as a population rate.
The Pharmacy First antimicrobial stewardship dashboard provides monthly reporting, and over time will allow for trend analysis for each of the seven common infections. There is an additional report associated with the uncomplicated urinary tract infection clinical pathway, which reports both Pharmacy First supply and General Practice prescribing of nitrofurantoin modified-release 100mg capsules, for women aged 16-64 years. This comparator is designed to support Integrated Care Board antimicrobial resistance surveillance of female population exposure to nitrofurantoin, and support improvement in the management of urinary tract infection in primary care.
This dashboard is coming soon and further details on the launch will follow.