Existing guidance on the management of some infections may be too long and complex for many doctors to have time to absorb, according to the Healthcare-Associated Infections (HCAI) Working Group at the Royal College of Physicians.
The group has now produced a one-page summary of guidelines to help busy doctors identify what is most important for them in their routine clinical practice. The “Top Ten Tips” for effective antibiotic prescribing aims to help doctors use antibiotics safely while protecting their patients and public health. In order to prevent a rise in drugresistant bacteria, doctors should prescribe the shortest course of treatment that is likely to be effective and antibiotic policies should be based on local data, in addition to national and international information, to help detect patterns of resistance in bugs. Commenting on the new guidance note, the chair of the HCAI Working Group, Professor Jon Friedland said: “Antibiotics are essential to modern medicine and may be life-saving, but their abuse leads to resistance. Doctors are ideally placed to take the lead on managing infection control promoting best practice, sharing knowledge and ensuring that the understanding of infection and antibiotic prescribing are a mandatory part of training.”
