The UK’s independent public spending watchdog announced this week (February 24) that the government has made “limited progress” on reducing AMR.
The NAO’s investigation into “how government is addressing AMR” found that “only one of the government’s five quantified domestic targets in National Action Plan 2019–2024 (NAP19–24) was met or on track to be met in the latest data”.
Read more: NHSE: Infection tests may be ‘introduced’ to Pharmacy First to tackle AMR
The NAO said that, despite the government spending around £567 million on AMR programmes between 2020-21 and 2023-24, “there has been no sustained reduction in the amount of AMR-related human infections that the government tracks”.
It added that “human usage of antibiotics has reduced in England, but by less” than the target 15% reduce in usage by 2024 planned by the Department of Health and Social Care (DH).
It said during the peak of Covid it had seen a 15% reduction. But following increases in 2022 and 2023, it had delivered a 6% reduction relative to the baseline year by 2023. Though it added that data for 2024, the deadline for the target to be met, was not yet available.
“A shift from face-to-face to online GP appointments may…have contributed, with some research suggesting GPs may be more likely to prescribe antimicrobials during virtual interactions,” the report said.
Read more: Pharmacists can ‘learn a lesson’ from vets over AMR, says DH
It added that the DH attributed the problem to “a post-pandemic increase in circulating infections which increased demand for antibiotics”.
However, the government was able to achieve its goal to reduce its antimicrobial use in food-producing animals by 25% in 2021, a year later than planned.
“A serious threat”
The watchdog said that “the UK government has been taking seriously its responsibility to address the issue in the UK and to try to coordinate and strengthen international responses”.
“But the UK remains a long way from the 20-year vision the government expressed in 2019: to control, contain and mitigate AMR,” it added.
The NAO advised that the government consider “whether targets for no increase in a range of human infections are stretching enough to make a contribution to the vision of reducing the burden of infection”.
Read more: Will pharmacy exacerbate the threat of AMR?
The watchdog also suggested that it “strengthened performance monitoring and deadlines for implementation”.
“AMR is a serious threat to the health of the public both in the UK and globally, and has the capacity to change our society radically for the worse,” it warned.
AMR latest
In May, the government said that pharmacy had “lessons to be learned in reducing antimicrobial use” from the veterinary sector.
And last January, an NHS England (NHSE) official said that “rapid infections diagnostics” in primary care had a “huge potential” to be the “first step in antimicrobial stewardship”.
Read more: Pharmacy First to be ‘closely monitored’ for antimicrobial resistance risk
NHSE’s national clinical lead for AMR diagnostics Dr Jane Freeman stressed the importance of understanding “how best to introduce diagnostics in complex clinical settings and evolving pathways, like the Pharmacy First scheme”.
In November 2023, contractors told C+D that they couldn’t “see a risk” of the new Pharmacy First service increasing AMR amid the news that this will be “closely monitored”.
The previous month, NHSE director for pharmacy Ali Sparke revealed that NHSE had agreed it would “commission a piece of evaluation to look at the implications” of Pharmacy First for AMR.
