CANCER patients from the district have spoken of how important antibiotics have been to them after worrying data revealed a rise in bloodstream infections which are resistant to the often life-saving drugs.

Public Health England has warned that more than three million surgical operations, including common procedures like caesarean sections and hip replacements, as well as cancer treatments, a year in England may become life-threatening without antibiotics

They play a vital role in managing infections and without antibiotics, infections related to surgery could double, putting people at risk of dangerous complications. Cancer patients are also much more vulnerable if antibiotics don’t work.

Millie Thompson, 16, from Cleckheaton was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2017. Antibiotics have been vital in treating infections she has suffered throughout the course of her cancer treatment, which involved a bone reconstruction in her right leg, at Leeds Children’s Hospital .

She said: “It’s really worrying that antibiotics might not work in the future – if we don’t have antibiotics to treat us then what else are we left with? There’s no other option and it’s massively thanks to antibiotics that I still have my leg.”

The teen's Consultant Oncologist, Dr Bob Philips, said: "In the days before antibiotics, around a third of patients died from infections. We’ve now gone through an era with antibiotics that can treat virtually everything, but now the bugs causing these infections have worked out how to avoid the antibiotics and this could put us back years. If we don’t take action now, patients will die from infections that were previously treatable or will experience significant complications. We’ll have to scale back treatment because the risks will be too great, and if we can’t treat complications from cancer that means less effective cancer care."

Paul Hajdysz, a 66-year-old retired stonemason from Thornton, is currently in Bradford Royal Infirmary receiving intravenous antibiotics to treat an infection he picked up while having chemotherapy, which reduces the ability of the immune system to fight infections.

Paul was successfully treated for prostate cancer several years ago but last year blood tests showed cancer had returned, but this time it was centred on his lung. He had treatment, which included surgery to remove a third of his lung, and now is receiving chemotherapy.

He described the antibiotics received as being a "life-saver".

Figures show that antibiotic resistant bloodstream infections rose by around 35 per cent between 2013 and 2017.

Health bosses, through the 'Keep Antibiotics Working' campaign, are urging people to help tackle antibiotic resistance by only using them when they are really needed.

Helen McAuslane, from Public Health Yorkshire and the Humber, said: "Taking antibiotics just in case may seem like a harmless act but it can have grave consequences for you and your family’s health in future.”