Antibiotics help ward off infections during surgery and other hospital treatments. They also treat serious bacterial infections, such as pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis.
There is a misconception that antibiotics can be used to treat common viral infections such as colds or flu, but this is not the case. Harmful bacteria that live inside you can become resistant to antibiotics. That means that antibiotics may not work to fight bacterial infections when you really need them.
An estimated 5,000 deaths occur every year in England [1] because antibiotics no longer work for some infections; this figure is set to rise with experts predicting that in just over 30 years antibiotic resistance will kill more people than cancer and diabetes combined.
Public Health England have launched the ‘Antibiotic Guardian’ campaign to raise awareness of the misuse of antibiotics. The campaign aims to educate the public about the dangers of using antibiotics to treat colds and flu therefore helping health care professional limit the amount of antibiotics prescribed.
What we are doing
Here at KIMS Hospital we fully endorse the Public Health Campaign and already take action to only use antibiotics where clinically necessary.
Rod, our Infection Control Lead Nurse, and Graham, our Pharmacy Manager, are helping to spread the message of the ‘Antibiotic Guardian’ campaign by raising awareness inside our hospital, among staff and our patients. Our aim is to help the people of Kent better understand antibiotics and their valuable role in keeping us all healthy and well.
To find out more about the campaign visit http://antibioticguardian.com/keep-antibiotics-working/
1. Public health matters website 15th Nov 2017 https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2017/11/15/health-matters-resources-to-keep-antibiotics-working/