Did We Help Create the Crisis? A Miracle Cure with Early Warnings
When antibiotics arrived in the mid-20th century, they were hailed as the cure for infectious disease. Scientists lined up to declare victory over illness, even though early laboratory evidence was already showing bacteria developing resistance.
The warnings were there from the beginning, but celebration drowned them out. Decades later, we are paying the price for that scientific hubris and for a medical system that treated antibiotics as a limitless resource instead of a fragile one.
A Crisis Growing Across England
Antibiotic resistance is now accelerating across England.
In 2024, almost 400 new resistant infections were recorded every single week. Deaths rose sharply too, from just over 2,000 in 2023 to nearly 2,400 in 2024.
E. coli alone now causes almost two-thirds of all resistant bloodstream infections. These figures represent real people whose lives might have been saved if these medicines still worked as they once did.
This growing threat places further strain on healthcare workers already under pressure, an issue addressed in the union’s analysis of NHS workforce conditions.
Progress Undermined by Private Prescribing
The NHS has worked to cut antibiotic use, bringing prescribing around 2% below pre-pandemic levels.
However, this progress is being undercut by the rapid expansion of private prescribing. Pharmacy dispensing has more than doubled since 2019, and around 22% of antibiotics are now issued outside the NHS.
Many have raised concerns about government schemes that expand access without providing rapid diagnostic tools needed to avoid unnecessary prescribing.
This reflects a wider problem of fragmented healthcare delivery, explored further in the WEU’s campaign to defend the NHS.
Inequality and Public Misunderstanding
Inequality plays a significant role in the resistance crisis.
People living in the poorest communities are now around 47% more likely to develop a resistant infection than those in the wealthiest areas.
Public understanding also remains uneven. Many people still believe antibiotics cure viral infections, or expect them for minor, self-limiting illnesses.
Although trust in GPs remains high, resistance is often viewed as an unavoidable background problem rather than something directly shaped by prescribing decisions and collective behaviour.
What We Need to Do Now
Reducing antibiotic resistance requires more than simply telling people to “use them responsibly.”
It requires political honesty and a willingness to confront decades of overuse, including unnecessary prescribing within the medical profession itself.
Action must include tackling private over-prescribing, investing in infection prevention, and placing rapid diagnostic testing into every GP practice and community pharmacy.
It also requires a national public education campaign that spells out the truth: antibiotics are not a renewable resource. Once they stop working, they do not come back.
A Warning We Cannot Ignore Again
Workers need an NHS that can treat infections effectively. The NHS needs antibiotics that still work.
Unless decisive action is taken now, England risks drifting into a post-antibiotic era where routine infections once again become life-threatening.
This would have profound consequences for workplace safety, public health, and the ability of workers to remain healthy and employed.
Did You Know?
- Antibiotic resistance was first warned about in the 1940s, before antibiotics were widely used.
- Alexander Fleming celebrated penicillin as a miracle cure while warning misuse would create resistant infections.
- Many people still believe antibiotics treat viral illnesses like colds and flu.
- Misuse and overuse accelerate resistance from the very first exposure.
- Around two-thirds of resistant bloodstream infections in England are caused by E. coli.
- Deaths linked to resistant infections in England rose to nearly 2,400 in 2024.
- People in the poorest areas are almost 50% more likely to suffer resistant infections.
- Private antibiotic prescribing has more than doubled since 2019.
- Resistance spreads between people, even those who have never taken antibiotics.
- Good hygiene and infection prevention sharply reduce antibiotic demand.
References
Alexander Fleming, Nobel Prize Lecture (1945), “Penicillin.”
UK Government, UK 5-Year Action Plan for Antimicrobial Resistance 2024–2029.
Thomson et al., BMJ Open (2020).
Fleming Fund, History of Antimicrobial Resistance.
UKHSA, ESPAUR Report 2024–2025.
UKHSA, National Surveillance Report: Antibiotic-Resistant Infections 2024.
Davies & Davies, The Lancet (2010).
