Keep your antibiotics working urge GPs

Southport residents are being urged to play their part in a campaign to ‘keep antibiotics working’.

Public Health England want to remind patients that taking antibiotics when you don’t need them puts families at risk.

They say it’s important that, when it comes to antibiotics, you always take your doctor, nurse or healthcare professional’s advice.
Nationally, 38% of people expected an antibiotic from a doctor’s surgery, NHS walk-in centre or ‘GP out of hours’ service when they visited with a cough, flu or a throat, ear, sinus or chest infection in 2017.

NHS Southport and Formby Clinical Commis- sioning Group (CCG) and NHS South Sefton CCG are supporting the campaign alongside the council and have spent a number of years reducing inap- propriate antibiotic prescriptions to ensure that only the patients who really need them are prescribed them.