Antibiotic Research UK together with Exasol and Bright Bee publish for first time antibiotic prescribing data by area in England

Antibiotic Research UK working together with Exasol and Bright Bee have released to the public for the first time antibiotic prescribing data by English locality. Analysing over 602 million rows of data we have been able to demonstrate the variability in prescribing by area. The key findings are;

• There is a widening deprivation gap: The gap between prescriptions in the least and most deprived areas of England is widening and the difference in prescribing between the bottom and top 1% by deprivation is 20%
• Greater London doctors prescribe 21% fewer antibiotics than the North. The data also reveals that the most deprived coastal towns in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Essex are prescribing the most antibiotics in the country, with Clacton-on-Sea, the UK’s most deprived area, almost twice the national average.
• Doctors prescribe 59% more antibiotics in December than they do in August, despite the fact that many of the illnesses treated by antibiotics are not seasonal.
• Prescriptions per head peaked in 2012 with a total of 3.8 million prescriptions to English patients, but have dropped 5.6% since.

Here is the full text of the Release together with the heat map Infographic. For more information on the data analysis and EXASOL, please contact Claire Williamson or Tom Fry at Bright Bee on EXASOL@brightbee.co.uk or on tel 020 8819 3170. EXASOL was the Analytic database provider and their website is www.exasol.com