Antimicrobial prescribing guidelines

Guidance

Our guidelines offer evidence-based antimicrobial prescribing information for all care settings.

They focus on bacterial infections and appropriate antibiotic use. Each guideline topic features a visual summary of the recommendations, a guideline and an evidence review.

The visual summary is an overview of the guideline recommendations. It includes a prescribing table to support shared antimicrobial prescribing decisions in line with a health professional’s own clinical judgement.

NICE and Public Health England (PHE) have brought together our information on managing common infections into a summary table. We will add a summary of new NICE guidance as it's published. We also indicate where new guidance is in development.

The evidence and rationales underpinning the information in the table can be accessed by clicking on the hyperlinks or the visual summary icons in the document.

The processes used by each organisation to develop their guidance differ. The process for developing the NICE guidelines can be found in the interim process guide. The process for developing the PHE guidance is briefly outlined on the PHE website in the PHE context, references and rationales document with further information available upon request. 

This is the first time both sets of national guidance have been brought together and we would welcome your feedback. Please email infections@nice.org.uk if you have any feedback to help improve future versions.

Advice

Our antimicrobial evidence summaries provide commissioners, providers and health professionals with a summary of the best available evidence for antimicrobials.