Adherence to antibiotic guidelines and reported penicillin allergy: pooled cohort data on prescribing and allergy documentation from two English National Health Service (NHS) trusts.

A relatively high proportion of patients had a penicillin allergy and two thirds of these had no description of their allergy, which has important implications for patient safety. Patients with penicillin allergy treated for CAP, received more guideline adherent antibiotics than those without allergy. Future studies investigating the clinical impact of penicillin allergy should include data on adherence to antibiotic guidelines.