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Objective: To describe trends in the organisational structure, workforce and recorded appointments by role in English general practice., Design: Retrospective longitudinal study., Setting: English general practice., Data Sources and Participants: NHS England, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and Care Quality Commission national administrative datasets covering between 5 to 10 years from 2013 to 2023., Results: Between 2013 and 2023, the number of general practices fell by 20% from 8044 to 6419; the average practice list size increase by 40% from 6967 to 9724 patients. The total population covered by providers with over 100 000 registered patients reached 2.3 million in 2023 compared to 0.5 million in 2017. The proportion of practices under individual ownership decreased from 13% to 11% between 2018 and 2023; there was little change in the proportion owned by partnerships, incorporated companies or NHS bodies, which respectively averaged around 80.3%, 6.9% and 0.7%. Between 2015 and 2022, there was a 20% rise in the total full-time equivalent (FTE) general practice workforce, including Primary Care Network staff, from 1.97 to 2.37 per 1000 patients because of an increase in multidisciplinary other 'Direct Patient Care' (DPC) and administrative roles. The number of nurses remained stable, and the number of qualified general practitioners (GPs) decreased by 15%. In September 2022, there were 0.45 FTE qualified GPs per 1000 patients; GPs and other DPC roles, excluding nurses, each represented 19% of the FTE per 1000 patients workforce; administrative roles represented 51%. The general practice workforce is predominantly female. A quarter of GPs qualified overseas. Between 2018 and 2023, there was no clear upward or downward trend in total appointments per 1000 patients with, on average, half provided by GPs., Conclusions: Since 2013, there has been a shift in general practice towards larger practices with more multidisciplinary teams, alongside a reduction in the number of FTE qualified GPs per 1000 patients. We recommend that the impacts of these changes on access, quality and costs are closely monitored., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Intersectional social determinants including ethnicity are vital in health research. We curated a population-wide data resource of self-identified ethnicity data from over 60 million individuals in England primary care, linking it to hospital records. We assessed ethnicity data in terms of completeness, consistency, and granularity and found one in ten individuals do not have ethnicity information recorded in primary care. By linking to hospital records, ethnicity data were completed for 94% of individuals. By reconciling SNOMED-CT concepts and census-level categories into a consistent hierarchy, we organised more than 250 ethnicity sub-groups including and beyond "White", "Black", "Asian", "Mixed" and "Other, and found them to be distributed in proportions similar to the general population. This large observational dataset presents an algorithmic hierarchy to represent self-identified ethnicity data collected across heterogeneous healthcare settings. Accurate and easily accessible ethnicity data can lead to a better understanding of population diversity, which is important to address disparities and influence policy recommendations that can translate into better, fairer health for all., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Hospital patients who use illicit opioids such as heroin may use drugs during an admission or leave the hospital in order to use drugs. There have been reports of patients found dead from drug poisoning on the hospital premises or shortly after leaving the hospital. This study examines whether hospital admission and discharge are associated with increased risk of opioid-related death., Methods and Findings: We conducted a case-crossover study of opioid-related deaths in England. Our study included 13,609 deaths between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019 among individuals aged 18 to 64. For each death, we sampled 5 control days from the period 730 to 28 days before death. We used data from the national Hospital Episode Statistics database to determine the time proximity of deaths and control days to hospital admissions. We estimated the association between hospital admission and opioid-related death using conditional logistic regression, with a reference category of time neither admitted to the hospital nor within 14 days of discharge. A total of 236/13,609 deaths (1.7%) occurred following drug use while admitted to the hospital. The risk during hospital admissions was similar or lower than periods neither admitted to the hospital nor recently discharged, with odds ratios 1.03 (95% CI 0.87 to 1.21; p = 0.75) for the first 14 days of an admission and 0.41 (95% CI 0.30 to 0.56; p < 0.001) for days 15 onwards. 1,088/13,609 deaths (8.0%) occurred in the 14 days after discharge. The risk of opioid-related death increased in this period, with odds ratios of 4.39 (95% CI 3.75 to 5.14; p < 0.001) on days 1 to 2 after discharge and 2.09 (95% CI 1.92 to 2.28; p < 0.001) on days 3 to 14. 11,629/13,609 deaths (85.5%) did not occur close to a hospital admission, and the remaining 656/13,609 deaths (4.8%) occurred in hospital following admission due to drug poisoning. Risk was greater for patients discharged from psychiatric admissions, those who left the hospital against medical advice, and those leaving the hospital after admissions of 7 days or more. The main limitation of the method is that it does not control for time-varying health or drug use within individuals; therefore, hospital admissions coinciding with high-risk periods may in part explain the results., Conclusions: Discharge from the hospital is associated with an acute increase in the risk of opioid-related death, and 1 in 14 opioid-related deaths in England happens in the 2 weeks after the hospital discharge. This supports interventions that prevent early discharge and improve linkage with community drug treatment and harm reduction services., Competing Interests: The authors have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests. MF is Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre which receives funding from the Australian Federal Government Department of Health. He has also had unrestricted educational grant funding from Indivior, Mundipharma and Seqirius. Other authors declare no competing interests.

The benefits of using electronic health records (EHRs) for disease risk screening and personalized health-care decisions are being increasingly recognized. Here we present a computationally feasible statistical approach with which to address the methodological challenges involved in utilizing historical repeat measures of multiple risk factors recorded in EHRs to systematically identify patients at high risk of future disease. The approach is principally based on a 2-stage dynamic landmark model. The first stage estimates current risk factor values from all available historical repeat risk factor measurements via landmark-age-specific multivariate linear mixed-effects models with correlated random intercepts, which account for sporadically recorded repeat measures, unobserved data, and measurement errors. The second stage predicts future disease risk from a sex-stratified Cox proportional hazards model, with estimated current risk factor values from the first stage. We exemplify these methods by developing and validating a dynamic 10-year cardiovascular disease risk prediction model using primary-care EHRs for age, diabetes status, hypertension treatment, smoking status, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in 41,373 persons from 10 primary-care practices in England and Wales contributing to The Health Improvement Network (1997-2016). Using cross-validation, the model was well-calibrated (Brier score = 0.041, 95% confidence interval: 0.039, 0.042) and had good discrimination (C-index = 0.768, 95% confidence interval: 0.759, 0.777).

Aims: To assess the cost-effectiveness of a two-component intervention designed to increase attendance at the NHS Stop Smoking Services (SSSs) in England., Design: Cost-effectiveness analysis alongside a randomized controlled trial (Start2quit)., Setting: NHS SSS and general practices in England., Participants: The study comprised 4384 smokers aged 16 years or more identified from medical records in 99 participating practices, who were motivated to quit and had not attended the SSS in the previous 12 months., Intervention and Comparator: Intervention was a personalized and tailored letter sent from the general practitioner (GP) and a personal invitation and appointment to attend a taster session providing information about SSS. Control was a standard generic letter from the GP advertising SSS and asking smokers to contact the service to make an appointment., Measurements: Costs measured from an NHS/personal social services perspective, estimated health gains in quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) measured with EQ-5D and incremental cost per QALY gained during both 6 months and a life-time horizon., Findings: During the trial period, the adjusted mean difference in costs was £92 [95% confidence interval (CI) = -£32 to -£216) and the adjusted mean difference in QALY gains was 0.002 (95% CI = -0.001 to 0.004). This generates an incremental cost per QALY gained of £59 401. The probability that the tailored letter and taster session is more cost-effective than the generic letter at 6 months is never above 50%. In contrast, the discounted life-time health-care cost was lower in the intervention group, while the life-time QALY gains were significantly higher. The probability that the intervention is more cost-effective is more than 83% using a £20 000-30 000 per QALY-gained decision-making threshold., Conclusions: An intervention designed to increase attendance at the NHS Stop Smoking Services (tailored letter and taster session in the services) appears less likely to be cost-effective than a generic letter in the short term, but is likely to become more cost-effective than the generic letter during the long term., (© 2017 The Authors. Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction.)

Background: Drug misuse is a serious public health problem. Evidence from previous epidemiological studies show that GPs are recording drug misuse in electronic patient records (EPR). However, although the recording trends are similar to national surveys, recording rates are much lower., Aim: To explore the factors that influence GPs to record drug misuse in the EPR, and to gain a clearer understanding of the gap between the amount of drug misuse recorded in primary care and that in national surveys and other studies., Design and Setting: A semi-structured qualitative interview study of GPs working in general practices across England., Method: Purposive sampling was employed to recruit 12 GPs, both with and without a special interest in drug misuse, from across England. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted to consider whether and why GPs record drug misuse, which methods GPs use for recording, GPs' actions if a patient asks for the information not to be recorded, and GPs' actions if they think a patient misuses drugs but does not disclose the information. Resulting data were analysed using a combination of inductive and deductive thematic analysis., Results: The complexity of asking about drug misuse preceded GPs' decision to record. They described how the context of the general practice protocols, interaction between GP and patient, and the questioning process affected whether, how, and in which circumstances they asked about drug use. This led to GPs making a clinical decision on whether, who, and how to record in the EPR., Conclusion: When making decisions about whether or not to record drug misuse, GPs face complex choices. Aside from their own views, they reported feelings of pressure from the general practice environment in which they worked and their clinical commissioning group, as well as government policies., (© British Journal of General Practice 2018.)

Background: People with severe mental illnesses, including psychosis, have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. We aimed to evaluate the effects of a primary care intervention on decreasing total cholesterol concentrations and cardiovascular disease risk in people with severe mental illnesses., Methods: We did this cluster randomised trial in general practices across England, with general practices as the cluster unit. We randomly assigned general practices (1:1) with 40 or more patients with severe mental illnesses using a computer-generated random sequence with a block size of four. Researchers were masked to allocation, but patients and general practice staff were not. We included participants aged 30-75 years with severe mental illnesses (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or psychosis), who had raised cholesterol concentrations (5·0 mmol/L) or a total:HDL cholesterol ratio of 4·0 mmol/L or more and one or more modifiable cardiovascular disease risk factors. Eligible participants were recruited within each practice before randomisation. The Primrose intervention consisted of appointments (≤12) with a trained primary care professional involving manualised interventions for cardiovascular disease prevention (ie, adhering to statins, improving diet or physical activity levels, reducing alcohol, or quitting smoking). Treatment as usual involved feedback of screening results only. The primary outcome was total cholesterol at 12 months and the primary economic analysis outcome was health-care costs. We used intention-to-treat analysis. The trial is registered with Current Controlled Trials, number ISRCTN13762819., Findings: Between Dec 10, 2013, and Sept 30, 2015, we recruited general practices and between May 9, 2014, and Feb 10, 2016, we recruited participants and randomly assigned 76 general practices with 327 participants to the Primrose intervention (n=38 with 155 patients) or treatment as usual (n=38 with 172 patients). Total cholesterol concentration data were available at 12 months for 137 (88%) participants in the Primrose intervention group and 152 (88%) participants in the treatment-as-usual group. The mean total cholesterol concentration did not differ at 12 months between the two groups (5·4 mmol/L [SD 1·1] for Primrose vs 5·5 mmol/L [1·1] for treatment as usual; mean difference estimate 0·03, 95% CI -0·22 to 0·29; p=0·788). This result was unchanged by pre-agreed supportive analyses. Mean cholesterol decreased over 12 months (-0·22 mmol/L [1·1] for Primrose vs -0·36 mmol/L [1·1] for treatment as usual). Total health-care costs (£1286 [SE 178] in the Primrose intervention group vs £2182 [328] in the treatment-as-usual group; mean difference -£895, 95% CI -1631 to -160; p=0·012) and psychiatric inpatient costs (£157 [135] vs £956 [313]; -£799, -1480 to -117; p=0·018) were lower in the Primrose intervention group than the treatment-as-usual group. Six serious adverse events of hospital admission and one death occurred in the Primrose group (n=7) and 23, including three deaths, occurred in the treatment-as-usual group (n=18)., Interpretation: Total cholesterol concentration at 12 months did not differ between the Primrose and treatment-as-usual groups, possibly because of the cluster design, good care in the treatment-as-usual group, short duration of the intervention, or suboptimal focus on statin prescribing. The association between the Primrose intervention and fewer psychiatric admissions, with potential cost-effectiveness, might be important., Funding: National Institute of Health Research Programme Grants for Applied Research., (Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: We determined trends over time in the prevalence of neonatal drug withdrawal syndrome (NWS) in England compared with that reported in the USA, Western (W) Australia and Ontario, Canada. We also examined variation in prevalence of NWS according to maternal age, birth weight and across the English NHS by hospital trusts., Design and Setting: Retrospective study using national hospital administrative data (Hospital Episode Statistics) for the NHS in England between 1997 and 2011. NWS was identified using international classification of disease codes in hospital admission records. We searched the research literature and contacted researchers to identify studies reporting trends in the prevalence of NWS., Main Outcome Measures: Prevalence of NWS by calendar year per 1000 live births for each country/state. For births in England, prevalence by maternal age group and birth weight group. Prevalence by NHS trust and region at birth, and funnel plot to show outlying English NHS hospital trusts (>3 SD of mean prevalence)., Main Results: Mean prevalence rates of recorded NWS increased in all four countries. Rates stabilised in England and W. Australia from the early 2000s and rose steeply in the USA and Ontario during the late 2000s. The most recent prevalence rates were 2.7/1000 live births in England (2011; 1544 cases); 2.7/1000 in W. Australia (2009); 3.6/1000 in the USA (2009) and 5.1/1000 in Ontario (2011). The highest prevalence in England was among babies born to mothers aged 25-34 years at delivery and among babies born with low birth weight (1500-2500 g). In England in 2011, 8.6% of hospital trusts had a recorded prevalence outside 3 SD of the overall average (7% above, 1% below). The North East region of England had the highest recorded prevalence of NWS., Conclusions: Although recorded NWS is stable in England and W. Australia, rising rates in the USA and Ontario may reflect better recognition and/or increased use of prescribed opiate analgesics and highlight the need for surveillance. The extent to which different prevalence rates by hospital trust reflect variation in occurrence, recognition or recording requires further investigation., (Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/)

In England, hospital admissions for severe staphylococcal boils and abscesses trebled between 1989 and 2004. We investigated this trend using routine data from primary and secondary care. We used The Health Improvement Network (THIN), a large primary-care database and national data on hospital admissions from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). Time trends in the incidence of primary-care consultations for boils and abscesses were estimated for 1995-2010. HES data were used to calculate age-standardized hospital admission rates for boils, abscesses and cellulitis. The incidence of boil or abscess was 450 [95% confidence interval (CI) 447-452] per 100 000 person-years and increased slightly over the study period (incidence rate ratio 1·005, 95% CI 1·004-1·007). The rate of repeat consultation for a boil or abscess increased from 66 (95% CI 59-73) per 100 000 person-years in 1995 to peak at 97 (95% CI 94-101) per 100 000 person-years in 2006, remaining stable thereafter. Hospital admissions for abscesses, carbuncles, furuncles and cellulitis almost doubled, from 123 admissions per 100 000 in 1998/1999 to 236 admissions per 100 000 in 2010/2011. Rising hospitalization and recurrence rates set against a background of stable community incidence suggests increased disease severity. Patients may be experiencing more severe and recurrent staphylococcal skin disease with limited treatment options.

Background: Illicit drug use is a multifaceted public-health problem with potentially serious impacts. The United Kingdom has one of the highest prevalence of illegal drug use in Europe. Reduction of overall illegal drug use in England and Wales has decreased from 11% to 8.2% (2012/13) over the past 10 years. People who use drugs often seek help from their family doctors., Aims: To investigate General Practitioners (family doctors) first recording of drug use and opioid substitute treatment in primary care settings., Design: A descriptive study design. Males and females (16-64 years old) were extracted from The Health Improvement Network (THIN) database., Setting: England and Wales primary care., Method: The first recording of drug use and opioid substitution treatment in primary care was estimated for the period (1994-2012). Poisson regressions were conducted to estimate incidence risk ratios (IRR)., Results: We identified 33,508 first recordings of drug use and 10,869 individuals with prescriptions for opioid substitute treatment. Overall, males (IRR 2.02, 95% CI:1.97-2.07), people in the age-group; 16-24 (IRR 6.7, 95% CI:6.4-6.9) compared to those over 25 years and the most deprived (IRR 4.2, 95% CI:3.9-4.4) were more likely to have a recording of drug use. Males (IRR 1.2 95% CI:1.2-1.3), in the age-group; 25-34 (IRR 1.8 95% CI:1.7-1.9) and the most deprived (IRR 3.9 95% CI:3.6-4.3) were the groups more likely to have a opioid substitute treatment prescription., Conclusion: It is evident from this study that there is little recording of drug use and opioid substitute treatment in primary care. Most drug users do not receive treatment in primary care.

Objectives: To investigate the extent to which variation exists in the initiation rate of statin therapy for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease between countries of the UK and between different regions within England., Design: Cohort study using data from a large UK primary care database., Setting Uk Participants: 4,820,885 individuals from 554 general practices during the period 2004-2012., Main Outcome Measures: Rate of statin therapy initiation per 1000 person-years., Results: Relative to a fixed English rate of 1 initiation per 1000 person-years and accounting for gender, age and social deprivation level, the rate was similar for Scotland at 0.92 (95% CI 0.84 to 1.00) and rates for Northern Ireland and Wales were higher at 1.40 (95% CI 1.20 to 1.62) and 1.18 (95% CI 1.05 to 1.32), respectively. Within England, the regions could be classified into three groups with respect to statin therapy initiation rates (relative to a rate of 1 initiation per 1000 person-years for London): the South Central 0.73 (95% CI 0.64 to 0.83), South West 0.80 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.91), East of England 0.81 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.94) and South East Coast 0.83 (95% CI 0.73 to 0.95); strategic health authorities had similar low rates followed by the East Midlands 0.88 (95% CI 0.73 to 1.05), West Midlands 0.96 (95% CI 0.84 to 1.09), North East 0.96 (95% CI 0.79 to 1.16), Yorkshire and Humber 0.97 (95% CI 0.81 to 1.17) and London strategic health authorities. North West England exhibited the highest rate of statin therapy initiation of 1.16 (95% CI 1.02 to 1.31)., Conclusions: Considerable variation in the rate of statin therapy initiation was observed between the four countries of the UK and between different geographical regions within England., (Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.)

Objective: To investigate how smoking status is recorded in UK primary care; to evaluate whether appropriate multiple imputation (MI) of smoking status yields results consistent with health surveys., Setting: UK primary care and a population survey conducted in the community., Participants: We identified 354 204 patients aged 16 or over in The Health Improvement Network (THIN) primary care database registered with their general practice 2008-2009 and 15 102 individuals aged 16 or over in the Health Survey for England (HSE)., Outcome Measures: Age-standardised and age-specific proportions of smokers, ex-smokers and non-smokers in THIN and the HSE before and after MI. Using information on time since quitting in the HSE, we estimated when ex-smokers are typically recorded as non-smokers in primary care records., Results: In THIN, smoking status was recorded for 84% of patients within 1 year of registration. Of these, 28% were smokers (21% in the HSE). After MI of missing smoking data, the proportion of smokers was 25% (missing at random) and 20% (missing not at random). With increasing age, more were identified as ex-smokers in the HSE than THIN. It appears that those who quit before age 30 were less likely to be recorded as an ex-smoker in primary care than people who quit later., Conclusions: Smoking status was relatively well recorded in primary care. Misclassification of ex-smokers as non-smokers is likely to occur in those quitting smoking at an early age and/or a long time ago. Those with no smoking status information are more likely to be ex-smokers or non-smokers than smokers.

Background: Information is lacking on how concerns about child maltreatment are recorded in primary care records., Aim: To determine how the recording of child maltreatment concerns can be improved., Design and Setting: Development of a quality improvement intervention involving: clinical audit, a descriptive survey, telephone interviews, a workshop, database analyses, and consensus development in UK general practice., Method: Descriptive analyses and incidence estimates were carried out based on 11 study practices and 442 practices in The Health Improvement Network (THIN). Telephone interviews, a workshop, and a consensus development meeting were conducted with lead GPs from 11 study practices., Results: The rate of children with at least one maltreatment-related code was 8.4/1000 child years (11 study practices, 2009-2010), and 8.0/1000 child years (THIN, 2009-2010). Of 25 patients with known maltreatment, six had no maltreatment-related codes recorded, but all had relevant free text, scanned documents, or codes. When stating their reasons for undercoding maltreatment concerns, GPs cited damage to the patient relationship, uncertainty about which codes to use, and having concerns about recording information on other family members in the child's records. Consensus recommendations are to record the code 'child is cause for concern' as a red flag whenever maltreatment is considered, and to use a list of codes arranged around four clinical concepts, with an option for a templated short data entry form., Conclusion: GPs under-record maltreatment-related concerns in children's electronic medical records. As failure to use codes makes it impossible to search or audit these cases, an approach designed to be simple and feasible to implement in UK general practice was recommended.

Background: In 2003, the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) advised against treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) other than fluoxetine in children, due to a possible increased risk of suicidal behaviour. This study examined the effects of this safety warning on general practitioners' depression diagnosing and prescription behaviour in children., Methods and Findings: We identified a cohort of 1,502,753 children (<18 y; registered with GP for >6 m) in The Health Improvement Network (THIN) UK primary care database. Trends in incidence of depression diagnoses, symptoms and antidepressant prescribing were examined 1995-2009, accounting for deprivation, age and gender. We used segmented regression analysis to assess changes in prescription rates. Overall, 45,723 (3%) children had ≥ 1 depression-related entry in their clinical records. SSRIs were prescribed to 16,925 (1%) of children. SSRI prescription rates decreased from 3.2 (95%CI:3.0,3.3) per 1,000 person-years at risk (PYAR) in 2002 to 1.7 (95%CI:1.7,1.8) per 1,000 PYAR in 2005, but have since risen to 2.7 (95%CI:2.6,2.8) per 1,000 PYAR in 2009. Prescription rates for CSM-contraindicated SSRIs citalopram, sertraline and especially paroxetine dropped dramatically after 2002, while rates for fluoxetine and amitriptyline remained stable. After 2005 rates for all antidepressants, except paroxetine and imipramine, started to rise again. Rates for depression diagnoses dropped from 3.0 (95%CI:2.8,3.1) per 1,000 PYAR in 2002 to 2.0 (95%CI:1.9,2.1) per 1,000 PYAR in 2005 and have been stable since. Recording of symptoms saw a steady increase from 1.0 (95%CI:0.8,1.2) per 1,000 PYAR in 1995 to 4.7 (95%CI:4.5,4.8) per 1,000 PYAR in 2009., Conclusions: The rates of depression diagnoses and SSRI prescriptions showed a significant drop around the time of the CSM advice, which was not present in the recording of symptoms. This could indicate caution on the part of GPs in making depression diagnoses and prescribing antidepressants following the CSM advice.

Rates of hospital-acquired staphylococcal infection increased throughout the 1990s; however, information is limited on trends in community-onset staphylococcal disease in the United Kingdom. We used Hospital Episode Statistics to describe trends in hospital admissions for community-onset staphylococcal disease and national general practice data to describe trends in community prescribing for staphylococcal disease. Hospital admission rates for staphyloccocal septicemia, staphylococcal pneumonia, staphylococcal scalded-skin syndrome, and impetigo increased >5-fold. Admission rates increased 3-fold for abscesses and cellulitis and 1.5-fold for bone and joint infections. In primary care settings during 1991-2006, floxacillin prescriptions increased 1.8-fold and fusidic acidprescriptions 2.5-fold. The increases were not matched by increases in admission rates for control conditions. We identified a previously undescribed but major increase in pathogenic community-onset staphylococcal disease over the past 15 years. These trends are of concern given the international emergence of invasive community-onset staphylococcal infections.

Objectives: To determine the differences in mortality and length of hospital stay in patients with bacteraemic infection caused by ESBL and non-ESBL producing Escherichia coli. Main outcome measures were mortality, time from bacteraemia to death and length of inpatient stay., Methods: From June 2003 to November 2005, we prospectively collected clinical and microbiological data on all adult patients with E. coli bacteraemia., Results: ESBL producing E. coli caused 16/242 (6.6%) community-acquired and 30/112 (26.8%) hospital-acquired bacteraemic infections. The most common sites of infection were urine 239/354 (67.5%) and bile 41/354 (11.6%). All ESBL producers were resistant to cephalosporins. Resistance to ciprofloxacin, trimethoprim, gentamicin and amikacin were 42/46 (91.3%), 39/46 (84.8%), 14/46 (30.4%) and 2/46 (4.3%), respectively. A significantly higher proportion of patients died following a bacteraemic infection caused by ESBL producing E. coli, 28/46 (60.8%), compared to non-ESBL producing E. coli, 73/308 (23.7%). The adjusted odds ratio for death was 3.57 (95% CI 1.48-8.60, p<0.005). Delay in initiating an appropriate antibiotic was significantly associated with death and ESBL production. There was no significant difference between time from bacteraemia to death (median time 7 days (ESBL +ve group) vs 5 days (ESBL -ve group); p=0.69) and, in those who survived, length of inpatient stay (median time 9 days (ESBL +ve group) vs 12 days (ESBL -ve group); p=0.111)., Conclusions: Mortality following bacteraemic infection caused by ESBL producing E. coli was significantly higher than non-ESBL producing E. coli. These findings have serious implications for antibiotic prescription, as cephalosporins are ineffective treatment for many E. coli infections.