Kenneth Calman: overuse of antibiotics can speed up resistance

"Doctors are very aware of the problems with antibiotics and the public do have a responsibility if their doctor says they should not be given antibiotics to recognise that that is a good clinical decision, not a bad one," he said.

Diane Walford, head of the Public Laboratory Service, said the recommendations would hopefully allow the pharmaceutical industry to "buy time" to develop new drugs.

The British Medical Association has welcomed the report and it backs a decision by the Doctor Patient Partnership (DPP), a group set up by doctors and the government in 1996 to encourage appropriate use of the NHS, to relaunch its Antibiotics: not a miracle cure! campaign.

Judy Walford: guidelines could buy drug industry time

The campaign includes an updated leaflet about problems associated with antibiotic use, such as inappropriate prescription, failure to take a complete course of pills and side effects.

Claire Rayner of the Patients' Association has rejected claims that patients are to blame for overprescription of antibiotics.

She accused GPs of "slapdash prescribing" of drugs, although she admitted that patients needed to understand that they did not need to go to their GP for every ache and pain.

House of Lords

A recent Health Which? report said over 15% of patients had been incorrectly prescribed antiobiotics for viral illnesses such as flu.

In April, a House of Lords select committee expressed great concern over the situation and called the new superbugs a major threat to public health.

The British Medical Association debated the problem of superbugs at its annual conference.

This followed research showing that one in 10 people contracted illnesses while in hospital, many of them from bugs such as MRSA.