• anaesthesia
• audit
• basic sciences
• health informatics
• bioanalysis

Oxford dictionaries define apocalypse as ‘an event involving destruction or damage on a catastrophic scale’.

In October this year, England’s chief medical officer, Sally Davies, reported that the world was facing a postantibiotic apocalypse that will lead to the end of modern medicine as we know it. I would not normally write another editorial on antibiotic resistance so soon after the call in the November 2017 issue, which reminded pharmacists of their gatekeeper role in the use of antimicrobials, but such radical comments have to be taken seriously.

The 2017 English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance report1 highlights the issues facing England and also has useful information for Europe. The data make worrying reading. In 2016 the most common cause of bloodstream infections was Escherichia coli, where 41% were resistant to co-amoxiclav, the most common antibiotic used. Twenty per cent …

Correspondence to Professor Phil Wiffen, Pain Research Unit, Churchill Hospital, Oxford OX3 7LE, UK; phil.wiffen{at}ndcn.ox.ac.uk