Community prescribing by general practice in Australia is higher than most comparable first-world countries
Warning letters will soon be hitting the letterboxes of more than 5000 of Australia’s highest antibiotic-prescribing GPs in an effort to curb the rise of superbugs.
Australian Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy flagged the move in a national round table on antibiotic resistance in primary care in April, inspired by the success of a similar “nudge tactic” in the UK.
Speaking at the round table, UK Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies said that the rate of antibiotic prescribing was reduced by 3.3% in six months after high-antibiotic-prescribing GPs were sent a letter informing them their practice was prescribing antibiotics at a higher rate than 80% of practices in their NHS Local Area Team.
This was equivalent to an estimated 73,000 fewer antibiotics dispensed.
Now, Australian GPs are being sent similar letters urging them to limit their antibiotic prescribing in order to preserve the dwindling number of antibiotics that remain effective in treating infections.
“Our community prescribing by general practice is higher than most comparable first-world countries,’’ Professor Murphy told Queensland’s Courier-Mail newspaper.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Department of Health told The Medical Republic that all GPs were ranked by the number of antibiotic prescriptions they wrote, as dispensed through the PBS, per 1,000 patient visits.
Professor Murphy consulted the AMA, RACGP and ACCRM about the mailout, and the Department of Health had established a call centre for any GPs seeking more information on the letter or antibiotic prescribing in general, the spokeswoman said.
