Research from Antibiotic Research UK and EXASOL, an analytic database company, has revealed the extent of antibiotic prescribing in the UK in the form of a heatmap (see below).

Data released by the Health and Social Care Information Centre and sourced from the NHS Business Services Authority was analysed and consisted of 602 million prescriptions over five years from August 2010 to July 2015.

It found that although antibiotic prescribing is declining across the country, with 36.5 million antibiotic prescriptions in 2015 compared to 37.9 million in 2013, in the UK’s most deprived areas antibiotic prescribing rates are almost twice the national average and are increasing.

The research also found:

• Greater London doctors prescribe 21 per cent fewer antibiotics than doctors in the North
• Isle of Wight prescribes 15 per cent more antibiotics than the average in the South
• The most deprived coastal towns in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Essex are prescribing the most antibiotics in the country
• Prescriptions per head peaked in 2012 with a total of 3.8 million prescriptions to English patients, but have dropped 5.6 per cent since
• Hotspots in rural communities can be attributed to high prescribing by a single practice
• Doctors prescribe 59 per cent more antibiotics in December than they do in August, despite the fact that many of the illnesses treated by antibiotics are not seasonal.

Sean Jackson, chief marketing officer, EXASOL, said: “The heat map we created pinpoints where areas of high prescribing are down to the lowest geographic area. In some cases there will be an explanation for high prescribing rates, but this data can be used by government and medical bodies to really understand where problem areas are and begin to solve the issues behind high prescribing and the consequential increased resistance.”

Heatmap to show antibiotic prescriptions per head for the year to July 2015:

Results grouped by LSOA region – detailed geographic areas – England is divided into 34,000 such regions.