Recommendation 18

The government categorises AMR as one of 26 ‘chronic’ risks facing the UK, which means that it poses a long-term, continuous challenge to the UK, as opposed to an ‘acute’ risk which is an immediate threat which may require an emergency response.48 Chronic risks can manifest as acute risks themselves and can also make other acute risks more severe.49 When we asked DHSC about the risk classification of AMR, it told us that there was a small risk of a wave of a significant AMR organism going around the world and needing emergency action. It said that AMR is more of a chronic risk that grows over time, but that this can make it harder to deal with and ensure that attention is sufficiently focused on it continually, because it is something gradually increasing in the background, rather than highly visible and of which the seriousness is easily understood.50