PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Antimicrobials: Drug Resistance (13 March 2018)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department plans to publish a new five year AMR Strategy, and whether that strategy will include best practice on infection prevention and control, including hand hygiene compliance.

Asked by:
Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative)

The current five year United Kingdom Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) strategy was published at the end of 2013. Work is underway to consider the priorities and focus for a refreshed strategy and national action plan for publication at the end of 2018. The refreshed strategy will continue to focus on preventing infections as one of its key pillars.

The current AMR programme has an ambition to halve healthcare associated Gram–negative blood stream infections by 2020/2021. NHS Improvement leads this work and has included hand hygiene in its work programme for 2018/19 in support of the ambition. As part of our work on the refreshed strategy, we will consider how to make best use of evidence-based and cost-effective technology.

We are working with our partners across the health and social care system, including the Care Quality Commission, to ensure that consideration of best practice in hand hygiene policies remains a focus of inspections in acute trusts.

Answered by:
Steve Brine (Conservative)
16 March 2018