Jim Cunningham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-11-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many cases of infection in NHS hospitals have been attributed to antibiotic resistant infections in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.

Ben Gummer

Public Health England (PHE) collects data only on key pathogens and antimicrobials identified from positive blood specimens reported through hospital laboratories and infection control teams. Data is not collected in a format that allows attribution of antibiotic resistance to all cases of infection in National Health Service hospitals. It is therefore not possible to determine a total number of infections attributed to antibiotic resistance in each of the last five years. PHE is working, with partner organisations, to address antimicrobial resistance through the implementation of the UK Five Year Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy.