Antibiotic amnesty

Here you’ll find advice on running an antibiotic amnesty campaign and multilingual resources to support your local setting.

What is amnesty?

Tackling antimicrobial resistance through safe disposal

Antibiotic amnesty is the safe disposal of leftover antibiotics, to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This prevents hoarding, inappropriate reuse or disposing of them via domestic waste streams. Contaminating the environment and water courses with antibiotic residues can spread resistance genes among bacteria, putting our health at risk.

Not many people realise that leftover antibiotics can be returned to pharmacies or veterinary practices for safe disposal. Our amnesty campaign aims to tackle that by supporting you to run local amnesty campaigns to raise awareness of this simple action that can help tackle AMR.

We all need to get involved

Everyone can do their bit to fight antimicrobial resistance – patients, the public, animal owners and healthcare professionals. Safe disposal of antibiotics benefits everyone, so we want to see unused antibiotics returned to local pharmacies and veterinary practices.

Antibiotics should be used carefully – prescribed when necessary, taken only for as long as needed and disposed of safely. We need to keep antibiotics working!

Antimicrobial stewardship

All healthcare professionals have a part to play in promoting antimicrobial stewardship to fight AMR. An amnesty campaign is one way to get involved, so speak to colleagues:

  • Local pharmaceutical committees
  • Community pharmacy clinical leads
  • NHS England pharmacy advisors
  • Local NHS organisations – integrated care boards (ICBs) (England), health boards (Scotland) or local health boards (Wales)
  • Local veterinary practices
  • Healthcare services
  • Universities.

Make this a One Health approach to tackling AMR

In November, our colleagues in the veterinary profession are uniting for antibiotic amnesty to encourage clients to return unused or out of date antibiotics for animals.

Could YOU reach out to make sure that this is a One Health campaign involving human and animal health?

You'll find more information on these websites:

Logos of veterinary agencies supporting the Antibiotic Amnesty