THE North Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is working to raise the awareness of misusing antibiotics.

A national campaign has been launched to make people aware that taking antibiotics when they don’t need them, may mean they won’t work when they do.

Antibiotics are essential in curing a wide variety of infections which could otherwise prove fatal, like meningitis, pneumonia and sepsis, but taking them when you don’t need to could put you in real danger. If the harmful bacteria that live inside you become resistant to them, you may find that antibiotics won’t work for you when it really counts.

As part of the national campaign, led by Public Health England, the north Hampshire CCG is urging people to educate themselves about the effects.

Ruth Ellenby, pharmacist at North Hampshire CCG said: “Here in North Hampshire we’re working hard to raise awareness of the dangers of misusing antibiotics and reduce the number prescribed unnecessarily. In the last year we have continued to successfully reduce the inappropriate use of the drugs and are still in the top 25 percent of CCGs in the country for this. We know that we need to keep working to make sure that people really understand why this is so vitally important for them and their families.

“Always trust your doctor, nurse or pharmacist’s advice about when you need antibiotics. If you are prescribed them, make sure you take them as instructed and never save them for later use or share them with others.”