Hospital antibiotics 'fuelling superbugs'
Pastor Dale Morgan
Hospital antibiotics 'fuelling superbugs'*
By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:12AM BST 17/05/2008
Hospitals across the country are helping to fuel the rise of superbugs
like MRSA and C Difficile by overprescribing antibiotics, a government
adviser will warn next week.
GPs are already being urged not to hand out the drugs for coughs and
colds but many hospital doctors also overuse the medication, Prof Mark
Wilcox, of Leeds University, said.
Prof Wilcox, an expert on the control of hospital acquired infections,
will tell a conference on intensive care medicine in London next week
that part of the problem is that the health service does not know what
antibiotics hospitals prescribe.
He accused ministers of dragging their feet on plans for electronic
prescribing, which he said would allow NHS managers to see at a glance
how many of the drugs were being used and for what. Overuse of
antibiotics has led to increasing resistance to the drugs and the rise
of superbugs, such as methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus or MRSA.
Antibiotics can also reduce bacteria in the gut, which has been linked
to cases of the deadly bug C Difficile.
Experts warn that if antibiotic use is not reduced doctors could
eventually run out of treatments for certain diseases.
Prof Wilcox said: "There are many hospitals out there which are
overprescribing antibiotics.
"We have very full data about which antibiotics are prescribed by GPs,
but not which are prescribed in hospital.''
The Department of Health said that while electronic prescribing can help
reduce the problem of overuse "progress can be made without this
technology"