BackgroundPrimary care research networks have been established internationally since the 1960s to enable diverse practitioners to engage in and develop research and education and implement research evidence.The newly established Western Research and Education Network (WestREN) is one such network consisting of a collaboration between the Discipline of General Practice at NUI Galway and 71 West of Ireland general practices. In September 2009 all member practices were issued with a questionnaire with two objectives: to describe the structure and characteristics of the member practices and to compare the results to the national profile of Irish general practice.MethodsA postal survey was used followed by one written and one email reminder.ResultsA response rate of 73% (52/71) was achieved after two reminders.Half of practices were in a rural location, one quarter located in an urban setting and another quarter in a mixed location.Ninety-four per cent of general practitioners practice from purpose-built or adapted premises with under 6% of practices being attached to the general practitioner's residence. Over 96% of general practitioners use appointment systems with 58% using appointment only.All practices surveyed were computerised, with 80% describing their practices as 'fully computerised'. Almost 60% of general practitioners are coding chronic diagnoses with 20% coding individual consultations. Twenty-five per cent of general practitioners were single-handed with the majority of practices having at least two general practitioners, and a mean number of general practitioners of 2.4. Ninety-two per cent of practices employed a practice nurse with 30% employing more than one nurse.Compared to the national profile, WestREN practices appear somewhat larger, and more likely to be purpose-built and in rural areas. National trends apparent between 1982 and 1992, such as increasing computerisation and practice nurse availability, appear to be continuing.ConclusionsWestREN is a new university-affiliated general practice research network in Ireland. Survey of its initial membership confirms WestREN practices to be broadly representative of the national profile and has provided us with valuable information on the current and changing structure of Irish general practice.

BackgroundNew approaches are being sought to safely reduce community antibiotic prescribing. A recent study demonstrated that CRP testing resulted in decreased antibiotic prescribing for lower respiratory tract infection in primary care. There is little other published primary care data available evaluating CRP in the treatment of lower respiratory tract infections in routine clinical practice. This pilot study aims to describe the performance of near-patient CRP testing, in a mixed payments health system. Specific areas to be reviewed included the integrity of the study protocol, testing of data collection forma and acceptability of the intervention.PatientsPatients over the age of 18 years, with acute cough and/or sore throat with a duration of one month or less, in routine clinical practice.MethodDesign: A pilot with a cross-sectional design. The first 60 recruited patients were treated with routine clinical management, and GP's had no access to a CRP test. For the subsequent 60 patients, access to CRP testing was available.Participants: 3 GP's in one Irish primary care practice recruited 120 patients, fulfilling the above criteria over five months, from January 1 to May 31, 2010.Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was antibiotic prescription at the index consultation. Secondary outcomes were the numbers of delayed prescriptions issued, patient satisfaction immediately after consultation and re-consultations and antibiotic prescriptions during 28 days follow-up.ResultsThe protocol and data collection forms worked well and the intervention of CRP testing appeared acceptable. Thirty-five (58%) patients in the no-test group received antibiotic prescriptions compared to 27 (45%) in the test group. Both groups demonstrated similarly high level of patient satisfaction (85%). Fourteen (23%) patients in the CRP test group re-attended within 28 days compared to 9 (15%) in the no-CRP test group.ConclusionThis pilot study confirms the potential feasibility of a full trial in Irish general practice. Further consideration of possible increased re-attendance rates in a mixed payments health system is appropriate. We intend to pursue a larger trial in a newly established regional primary care research network.

Objectives To evaluate the effect of general practice-level prescribing feedback on antibiotic prescribing in a real-world pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial Methods Three hundred and forty general practices in four territorial Health Boards in NHS Scotland were randomized in Quarter 1, 2016 to receive four quarterly antibiotic-prescribing feedback reports or not, from Quarter 2, 2016 to Quarter 1, 2017. Reports included different clinical topics, benchmarking against national and health board rates, and behavioural messaging with improvement actions. The primary outcome was total antibiotic prescribing rate. There were 16 secondary prescribing outcomes and 5 hospital admission outcomes (potential adverse effects of reduced prescribing). The main evaluation timepoint was 1 year after the final report (Quarter 1, 2018), with an additional evaluation in the quarter after the final report (Quarter 2, 2017). Routine administrative NHS data were used to generate the feedback reports and analyse the effects. Results Total antibiotic prescribing rates were lower at the main evaluation timepoint in both intervention (1.83 versus baseline 1.93 prescriptions/1000 patients/day) and control (1.90 versus baseline 1.98) practices, with no evidence of intervention effect [adjusted rate ratio (ARR) 0.98 (95% CI 0.94–1.02; P = 0.35)]. At the additional timepoint, adjusted total antibiotic prescribing rates were 1.67 and 1.73 prescriptions/1000 patients/day, with evidence of a small intervention effect, ARR 0.99 (0.98–1.00; P = 0.03). Conclusions This well-designed, practice-level antibiotic-prescribing feedback had limited evidence of additional effects in the context of decreasing antibiotic prescribing and an established national stewardship programme.

ObjectivesThere have been a number of key changes in the clinical definition and diagnostic threshold of acute coronary syndromes in the last 10 years. We have characterised temporal and geographic changes in the incidence and outcomes following Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS: Unstable Angina (UA), Non ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) and ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI)) between 2009 and 2013. Approach65,137 hospitals stays were identified involving ACS (ICD-10: I20.0, I21 and I22) relating to 55,369 individuals identified through secondary care primary diagnosis records during 2009-2013. All prior and subsequent secondary care diagnoses from 1981-2014 were sourced for these patients and records were deterministically matched on a pseudo patient identifier to obtain the cause and date of death for purposes of follow-up. An incident ACS case was defined as such if the patient had not suffered an ACS in the five years prior to the hospital admission and all co-morbidities were derived from hospital diagnostic codes accompanying the ACS codes. ResultsFor the entire cohort, patients with an incident ACS were predominantly male (61.5%) with mean age 68 (SD=13.7 years). Co-morbidities included: 65.5% Other Ischaemic Heart Disease; 5.2% Stroke; 7.5% Peripheral Artery Disease; 14.8% Atrial Fibrillation; 42.0% Hypertension; 18.0% Diabetes Mellitus and 8.4% Chronic Kidney Disease. The overall incidence of ACS in 2009 was 204/100,000 and fell by 8.1% to 188/100,000 in 2013. Subtypes of ACS comprised 9.4% UA, 50.9% NSTEMI, 29.0% STEMI and 10.8% MI unspecified in 2013. In-hospital mortality following an incident ACS was 9.7% (95% CI: 9.2-10.3%) in 2009 and varied from 7.9 to 19.0% across the NHS boards. In 2013, in-hospital mortality was 8.5% (95% CI: 7.9-9.0%) ranging from 4.5 to 10.5% across the NHS boards. One-year mortality following an incident ACS in 2009 was 18.6% (95% CI: 17.9-19.4%) falling to 16.8% (95% CI: 16.1-17.5%) in 2013. Stratified by NHS board, the one-year mortality rate in 2009 varied from 16.9 to 28.0% and in 2013 ranged from 11.9 to 20.0% across the NHS boards. ConclusionThese findings highlight the importance of a cohort based record linkage approach to routine healthcare datasets. While there appears to be changes in incidence of ACS and its subtypes and changes in mortality over time, these findings reflect significant changes in clinical practice with respect to definition and diagnosis. Cautious interpretation is needed combined with further research to fully understand the epidemiological implications of our findings.

ABSTRACT ObjectivesUrinary tract infections (UTIs) are amongst the most common infections treated in community and hospital settings. Initial antibiotic treatment of UTI is usually empirical, that is, where the prescriber has no definitive information on the organism or its antibiotic sensitivity.. Overall the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance is increasing, and specifically so for antibiotics commonly used for UTI. By linking NHS surveillance data to routinely collected administrative health data this study aims to investigate risk factors for antibiotic resistance in urine samples ApproachAll positive urine samples included in the “Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance in Urinary Isolates in Scotland” dataset in the period from January 2012 to June 2015 (all NHS Health Boards in Scotland submit susceptibility data for up to eleven antibiotics on 400 positive urinary samples per quarter) were analysed. Cases were assigned a resistance status of Sensitive, Resistant or Multi-drug resistant based on the antibiotic susceptibility data recorded. Using the NHS Scotland Infection Intelligence Platform all cases were linked to national coverage data: (i) hospital discharge data to create the Charlson score for comorbidity and (ii) patient-level community prescribing data to measure cumulative antibiotic exposure (number of defined daily doses) in the 3 months prior to infection. Risk factors associated with the infection susceptibility to antibiotics were assessed using multivariable multinomial logistic regression. Results40,984 positive urine samples were examined. Overall 29.0% were sensitive, 48.1% resistant and 22.9% multi drug resistant. Around a third of the cases (33.9%) had no antibiotic prescribing in the 3 months prior to infection. Age, care home residence and increasing comorbidity were both found to be associated with resistance and multidrug resistance. Cumulative antibiotic exposure had a clear dose-response effect. Those with 1-7DDDs were 1.2 times (95% CI: 1.11-1.29) more likely to have a multidrug resistant infection (compared to a sensitive infection) rising to 7.45 times (95% CI: 95% CI 6.45-8.6) for 29+ DDDs. Similar dose response held for resistant infection but at a lesser scale (1-7DDDs OR=1.36 (95% CI: 1.2-1.5) rising to OR=3.04 (95% CI: 2.38-3.89). ConclusionA clear effect of cumulative antibiotic exposure in the community and multidrug resistance in UTI cases has been demonstrated. Such quantification is key to ensuring and supporting robust antimicrobial stewardship policy and will form the evidence base for development of prescribing decision support tools for more patient centred treatment of UTI.