Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 13
30th Report - Antimicrobial resistance: addressing the risks
Published 13 Jun 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Antimicrobial resistance: addressing the risks All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The 2024–29 National Action Plan (NAP) includes new targets which are less stretching than the targets in the 2019–24 NAP. While the government previously set targets for reductions of 50% in Gram-negative bloodstream infections and 10% in drug-resistant infections, the corresponding targets in the 2024–29 NAP only seek to prevent an increase in the number of these infections from a 2019–20 baseline.31 NHS England told us it believes these targets are still challenging due to changing demographics, in particular an increasing and ageing population with comorbidities.32 However, it is not clear that the new targets are ambitious enough to achieve a meaningful mitigation of the threat of AMR in the UK.33 Lord O’Neill told us that he believed that the 2024–29 NAP could be more ambitious in some areas.34 UKHSA told us that it considers that the targets are challenging. It promised that if government was overachieving and able to hit targets early then it would review and reset those targets during the course of the 2024–29 NAP.35
From: Public Accounts Committee, 30th Report - Antimicrobial resistance: addressing the risks (HC 646), 13 June 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirtieth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 13 August 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirtieth report from Session 2024-26
Published 18 September 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government says it agrees with the Committee's recommendations on antimicrobial resistance, and sets out target implementation dates ranging from Winter 2025 to Autumn 2027.
- On progress against targets, the government agrees, and says targets are subject to annual review over the summer, "with the potential to revise, if deemed appropriate and agreed by the UK AMR Strategy Board".
- On transparency, it agrees and says the government "will publish the first of these reports by the autumn", describing activity during the first year of the 2024-2029 National Action Plan.
- On diagnostics, it agrees (target date Spring 2027) and says engagement will inform an "infection diagnostics framework" by 2027, with point-of-care test pilots reporting in 2026-2027.
- On wastewater, it agrees (target date Autumn 2027); the department "will provide a full response via a White Paper in Autumn 2025" and "will commission further research" on evidence gaps "by Summer 2026".