A Stockport GP practice has cut its overall antibiotic prescribing by 15% after using a near-real-time dashboard.
Brinnington Health Centre in Stockport used the tool to identify prescribing variation, review repeat antibiotic use and support safer antimicrobial stewardship.
The practice also recorded a 10% reduction in broad-spectrum antibiotic prescribing and a 20% improvement in coding indications for broad-spectrum antibiotics.
And it reported better compliance with NICE guidance on sinusitis and otitis media management.
The reductions were achieved during a year-long trial, based on prescribing levels in March 2025 compared with March 2024.
The dashboard – Building Rapid Interventions to Improve Therapies 2 (BRIT2) – was developed through a collaboration between The University of Manchester and digital health provider Graphnet Health.
The aim was to help primary care teams better understand and review antibiotic prescribing patterns.
The BRIT2 system allowed the GP practice to analyse prescribing activity in near real time, including prescribing by condition, antibiotic type, course length and repeat-prescribing patterns.
Dr James Higgins, GP partner at Brinnington Health Centre, said: ‘Historically, antibiotic prescribing audits have often relied on data that is several months old, making it difficult to identify and address issues quickly.
‘What BRIT2 allows us to do is look at prescribing behaviour almost in real time and understand what is happening at both practice and patient level.’
The dashboard helps identify variation between clinicians and highlights areas where prescribing may fall outside NICE guidance.
Dr Higgins, who is clinical director at Tame Valley PCN, said the tool helped the practice ‘review prescribing decisions and support more evidence-based conversations across the team’.
The tool also helps clinicians identify patients repeatedly receiving antibiotics.
Dr Higgins said that one of the biggest advantages was ‘being able to identify recurring patterns that we might otherwise miss’.
‘In some cases, patients receiving repeated antibiotics actually needed a different type of intervention altogether,’ he said.
The initiative is part of a wider programme that builds on research led by The University of Manchester. It uses national primary care datasets, including OpenSAFELY and the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), alongside a knowledge support system to assist clinicians during consultations.
Primary care accounts for around 81% of antibiotic prescribing in England, making it a major focus in efforts to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
In 2024, the Government published a five-year action plan for AMR, which highlighted the need for improved antimicrobial stewardship, better use of data and reduced unnecessary prescribing across healthcare settings.
The team is now exploring further opportunities to improve coding of deferred prescriptions, review recurrent antibiotic use in children and identify patients who may benefit from earlier referral or alternative treatment pathways.
