Taking antibiotics when you don’t need then can put you and your family at risk.

Antibiotics can encourage harmful bacteria that live inside you to become resistant and more and more bacteria are becoming resistant to available antibiotics, limiting the options available to Doctors and clinicians.

Using antibiotics when you don’t need them, for everyday illnesses, may mean they no longer work when you really need them.

Whilst antibiotics are vital for treating many infections, there is evidence that antibiotics are often used when they are not needed, for example, for viral infections such as colds or flu where they are not effective or for illnesses that can get better by themselves.

The ‘Keep Antibiotics Working’ campaign therefore aims to reduce expectations for antibiotics, using the following key messages:

• Taking antibiotics when you don’t need them puts you and your family at risk.
• Taking antibiotics encourages harmful bacteria that live inside you to become resistant. That means that antibiotics may not work when you really need them.
• Always take your doctor’s advice on antibiotics

Find out more about antibiotics here

Additional resources:

There are a number of additional resources available such a posters, leaflets and digital assets, if you would like to find out more about these please email communications@voyccg.nhs.net