alt Hacker NewsIt does feel like they don't hand them out as often as they used to.
I've had 4 infections this year, including an ear infection, fingernail, chest (that caused pneumonia on my son) and one that caused my left eye to swell up.
I received no antibiotics for any of them, just a suggestion that if they didn't go away they might prescribe some. They all got better without them (except my son, who ended up in emergency and was given two different ones which cleared up his infection rapidly).
In the past though I'm pretty sure I would have been prescribed them immediately.
It's an intentional policy shift that has come not only as guidance to medical professionals, but as an awareness campaign (posters in pharmacies etc.) to the general public that most minor infections don't need antibiotics, and so ones that the body should be able to deal with on its own will no longer be prescribed antibiotics.
It used to be that they were prescribed much more freely, because on the level of an individual case it's unlikely to do any harm and might help speed up getting better, and it was an easy way for doctors to make patients feel cared for to send them off with a prescription. But sensibly that's been course corrected now.