A digital dashboard which shows the nation’s antibiotic profile has been launched in Greater Manchester.

The National Antibiotic Prescribing Dashboard has been developed by Greater Manchester Connected Health City (GM CHC) researchers at the University of Manchester and Public Health England.

The team has pulled together data that shows factors such as GP practice location, time spent with patients and the impact of staff shortages on the number of antibiotics prescribed.

Funded by the Department of Health, the dashboard aims to help stakeholders such as Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and local authorities better understand the existing antibiotic prescribing landscape.

It is also hoped the project will help meet the Government’s target of reducing the number of inappropriate prescriptions by 50% by 2020.

Dr Victoria Palin, from the Greater Manchester Connected Health City research team at the University of Manchester, said: “The dashboard aims to optimise antibiotic prescribing in the UK by feeding back information to policy makers and antimicrobial stewardship programmes about antibiotic utility.

“Dashboard users have insight to the antibiotics are being prescribed for common infections, and what proportion of these prescriptions deviate from the recommended guidelines.

“One feature the dashboard highlights is the enormous prescribing variability for common infections, whilst another feature demonstrates antibiotic prescribing patterns in relation to a patient’s risk of infection related complications. To empower the healthcare sector, the dashboard is ever-evolving and can be tailored to meet the needs of the end user to optimise prescribing.”

The new dashboard is available to those working in a healthcare, research or government institution.

You can register for an account here.

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