NHS England has announced that it is to pay up to 50p per NHS patient to Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in a bid to cut the prescribing of antibiotics by 4 per cent in 2016/17, bringing it back to 2013/14 levels.

The move is part of what officials have called “the world’s largest healthcare incentive scheme” and will start next month. It is part of the “quality premium”, which offers millions of pounds of extra funding every year to CCGs for hitting a range of targets.

In addition, hospitals will be offered extra funding for gathering and sharing evidence of antibiotic consumption and review within 72 hours of the beginning of treatment through the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) scheme.

However, evidence from previous years shows that CCGs have not managed to achieve many of the targets required to earn quality premium funding and in 2013/14 and 2014/15 missed out on £380m in the quality premium cash available at the time.

When the funding was announced, a spokesman for NHS England said that antimicrobial resistance is a major threat to patient safety and the quality of care, so these measure will help to tackle the overuse and inappropriate prescription of antibiotics, which in turn will mean that in years to come patients can be protected from otherwise lethal infections.

Meanwhile, Professor Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer for England said that the NHS, government and industry all have a key role to play in combating antimicrobial resistance, which poses a catastrophic global threat. She added that the measures would put the NHS at the forefront of meeting this challenge.

Although some CCGs spent twice as much per registered patient on antibiotic treatment last year, GPs have been successful in slowing the growth in their use, with prescriptions falling to a five-year low over the year to November 2015.