NHS will roll out electronic prescribing to curb 'global health emergency' of antibiotic resistance

Medics will be ordered to cut use of antibiotics by 15 per cent by using electronic prescribing.

Health chiefs have drawn up the plans amid warnings that antibiotic resistance now poses as great a threat as climate change.

Matt Hancock will on Thursday tell the World Economic Forum in Davos that “we are on the cusp of a world where a simple graze could be deadly”.

Calling for it to be treated as a “global health emergency” he set out targets to cut use of the drugs across the country by 15 per cent within six years.

Simon Stevens, head of the NHS, said much of the change would be achieved by the rollout electronic prescribing across the health service.

The software means doctors are alerted to the most appropriate drugs for any condition, sparing them for when they are most needed. It also means health officials can detect areas that are doling out the most antibiotics – and put pressure on medics to cut down.

In his speech on Thursday, Mr Hancock will also unveil plans to reduce the number of resistant infections by 10 per cent by 2025.

The targets mean 5,000 fewer drug-resistant infections and at at least 15,000 fewer total healthcare-acquired infections a year.

He will say: “Imagine a world without antibiotics. Where treatable infections become untreatable, where routine surgery like a hip operation becomes too risky to carry out, and where every wound is potentially life-threatening.

“What would go through your mind if your child cut their finger and you knew there was no antibiotic left that could treat an infection?

“This was the human condition until almost a century ago. I don't want it to be the future for my children – yet it may be unless we act.”

The Health Secretary will say he “could not look my children in the eyes” if he was not doing all he could to tackle the urgent threat.

“Antimicrobial resistance is as big a danger to humanity as climate change or warfare. That's why we need an urgent global response,” he will tell the forum.

On Wednesday night Prime Minister Theresa May said: “The increase in antibiotic resistance is a threat we cannot afford to ignore.

“It is vital that we tackle the spread of drug-resistant infections before routine operations and minor illnesses become life-threatening.”

Government data shows that, since 2014, the UK has cut the amount of antibiotics it uses by more than 7 per cent and sales of antibiotics for use in food-producing animals has dropped by 40 per cent.

But the number of drug-resistant bloodstream infections has increased by 35 per cent from 2013 to 2017.

Chief medical officer for England, Professor Dame Sally Davies, said: “The threat of antimicrobial resistance cannot be overstated – without intervention it is not an exaggeration to say that we could return to the dark ages of medicine.”

Under the plans, health officials will explore how a new payment model could incentivise firms to develop drugs that will treat high priority resistant infections.