Prescribing of antibiotics in Bradford is the second highest in the country.

And experts in the city are warning there is a danger of losing the life-saving benefits of the drugs because of their overuse.

Simon Grant, senior pharmaceutical advisor at Bradford Health Authority, said although some of the high amount of antibiotic prescribing could be because of higher levels of illness in the city, patients' expectation also played a part.

He said action was essential "to ensure that seriously-ill patients can continue to benefit from current life-saving treatments.

"Unless we reserve antibiotics for these cases, we are in danger of increasing antibiotic resistance and losing vital weapons against disease."

A total of 466,000 antibiotic prescriptions were issued in the district last year - almost one for every person. The total cost of that is a staggering £1.7 million a year.

Mr Grant said Bradford's antibiotic prescribing figures were almost 30 per cent higher than the national average.

Bradford GP Dr Clare Connolly said there was pressure to prescribe antibiotics from patients, although she and other family doctors were beginning to find that the message about the right use of the drugs was getting across.

"People often come just before they're going on holiday, because they want to be well on holiday and they don't want children to be ill.

"There's a lot of pressure there because people might have saved up for a holiday for 18 months or two years."

Work was under way to cut unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics throughout the district, and figures were starting to fall, said Mr Grant.

In a bid to cut prescribing, education events have been held over the past two months as part of the city's Promoting Excellence on Clinical Effectiveness scheme.

Dr Connolly said: "What got across to me during the session I attended was hearing from the bacteriologist that every time we use antibiotics possibly unnecessarily, that means that when we see someone seriously ill, a child with meningitis or someone with kidney failure or leukaemia who needs antibiotics, they might be less effective that time."

Mr Grant said: "Although prescribing of antibiotics is reducing in Bradford, we want it to reduce even faster and further than elsewhere in the region.

"This means we feel we must continue with our three-year programme of work until at least 2002."

Last month, the Government published its antimicrobial strategy, setting out eight areas of action in the fight against infections which are resistant to treatment with antibiotics.