The ethics of setting national antibiotic policies using financial incentives.

Journal article

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an increasingly urgent global public health issue. Data from Public Health England- English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance (ESPAUR) - quantifies the scale of antibiotic resistance in key bacterial pathogens.

The Department of Health’s 5 year strategy to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with AMR (2013-2018) focused on optimising antibiotic prescribing and improving infection prevention and control. In April 2015 NHS England introduced a Quality Premium (QP) focussing on reducing antibiotics. QPs are financial rewards, with a maximal value equivalent to £5 per patient, intended to reward clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) for improvements in the quality of the services that they commission and for associated improvements in health outcomes and reducing inequalities. The AMR QP provided commissioners with financial incentives to reduce antibiotic prescribing; 80% linked to primary care quality measures (reduction in absolute number of antibiotic prescriptions by 1%, decrease in use of broad spectrum antibiotics by 10%) and 20% linked to improving availability of antibiotic prescribing data from secondary care.

Authors: Li, G; Hooper, C; Papanikitas, A; Hopkins, S; Sharland, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Royal College of General Practitioners
• Journal: British Journal of General Practice
• Volume: 67
• Issue: 662
• Pages: 419-420
• Publication date: 2017-08-31
• Acceptance date: 2017-08-21
• DOI: 10.3399/bjgp17x692465
• EISSN: 1478-5242
• ISSN: 0960-1643
• Pmid: 28860299
• Language: English
• Keywords: Journal Article