Antimicrobial stewardship

Welcome to the Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) Hub, hosted as part of a PrescQIPP collaboration with NHS England and Improvement to support CCG Antimicrobial Stewardship activity, and delivery of the NHS Antimicrobial Resistance programme and associated ambitions within the UK 5-year action plan for antimicrobial resistance 2019 to 2024. Access to the AMR Hub content is open and registration and Login are not required for this site.

This work has been led by Elizabeth Beech, Regional Antimicrobial Stewardship Lead South West Region, NHS England and NHS Improvement, who is responsible or the range of content available on this AMS Hub.

General resources

The role of NHS England in antimicrobial resistance prevention

NHS England has seconded three healthcare associated infection (HCAI) and AMR project leads to work for the rest of the 2014/15 financial year. The project leads will provide specialist clinical advice on AMR and HCAI to support commissioners, strengthen existing clinical networks and collaboration with partner organisations.

Who is Who

  • Elizabeth Beech - Primary Care (elizabeth.beech@nhs.net)
  • Emma Cramp - Secondary Care (emma.cramp@nhs.net)
  • Phil Howard - Community Pharmacy (philip.howard2@nhs.net)

Infection prevention and control and antimicrobial stewardship

Healthcare workers have a vital role in preserving the power of antimicrobials. Antibiotic prescribing and antibiotic resistance are inextricably linked. Overuse and incorrect use of antibiotics are major drivers of resistance. Inadequate hygiene and infection prevention and control measures help to spread infections.

The more we can do to prevent infections and control their spread, the more we will reduce the need for antibiotics and limit opportunities for antimicrobial resistant strains to develop. Where infections do occur we need to diagnose them quickly and use the antibiotics we have appropriately.

In December, 2010, National Health Service (NHS) England introduced national mandatory screening of all admissions for meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Public Health England published guidance on The Implementation of modified admission MRSA screening guidance for NHS (2014). This article reports an assessment of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the 2010 policy, from a regional or national health-care decision makers' perspective, compared with alternative screening strategies. A review of the national MRSA screening programme has been published.

ECDC Evidence Brief – Update on the spread of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriacea in Europe.

World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) - 18-24 November

What's new?

The articles below show new content added to the AMS Hub.

PHE have published new UTI diagnostic guidance for children, adults, and older adults

PHE have now published new diagnostic guidance for UTI in 3 patient groups and can be accessed here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/urinary-tract-infection-diagnosis

NICE and Public Health England now publish an Antimicrobial Prescribing guidance summary in a single document

NICE and Public Health England now publish an Antimicrobial Prescribing guidance summary in a single document. This is sited on a new look NICE web page which includes all NICE guidance and advice to help manage common infections and tackle antimicrobial resistance

NICE and Public Health England (PHE) have brought together our information on managing common infections into a summary table. We will add a summary of new NICE guidance as it's published. We also indicate where new guidance is in development.

https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/our-programmes/nice-guidance/antimicrobial-prescribing-guidelines

HEE Innovation Fund – Invitation to Tender

Reducing the threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains high on the national agenda. HEE is expected to take forward a prioritised programme of work, in support of the Government's ambitions to halve healthcare associated Gram-negative blood stream infections and inappropriate antimicrobial prescribing by 2020/21, making use of effective diagnostic tests. This also includes an assessment of workforce needs in relation to infection prevention and control.

We have set up an AMR Innovation Fund to encourage and support initiatives that will contribute to workforce development in this area, through education and training, particularly around behaviour change with evidence of outcomes.

Suitably qualified bidders are invited to tender. Please follow this link for further information.

CATCH film

We wanted to make you aware of an RCP-backed, Lancet-reviewed and Antibiotic Guardian-commended short film CATCH which is available for free and can be used at any antimicrobial stewardship event you may be running. CATCH is a short (16 minutes) drama film about a father and daughter quarantined in their home in a post-antibiotic near future. CATCH has screened at 18 film festivals on five continents as well as a host of science festivals and conferences, and is available free online here.

Click here for more information, and the electronic press kit.

HEE Antimicrobial event - 27th November

Health Education England are having conference on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), infections, deterioration and sepsis, to enable sharing of ideas and best practices on educating the future and current workforce on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), infections, deterioration and sepsis.

View the agenda here

Register here

Does a national NHS England incentive scheme to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in primary care deliver improvement?

NHS Improvement and the NHS BSA have published a poster report of the AMR Quality Premium 2015-17 performance at the PHE conference 11-12th September 2018.

The poster can be downloaded from the 'An Introduction to the Quality Premium' slider below, or click here.

Optimising Antimicrobial Use Dashboard

This dashboard uses routine primary care antimicrobial prescribing data accessed from NHSBSA ePACT2 analysis to report novel metrics that can be used to optimise duration of antibiotic use in primary care.

View > >

AMS Visual Analytics to support NHS antimicrobial stewardship activity during COVID-19 pandemic

This dashboard will allow clinicians working in primary care to monitor antibiotic prescribing trends that can alert clinicians to where further investigation of antibiotic use may be required to optimise safe and effective management of suspected infection.

View > >

AMS Visual Analytics to support Antimicrobial Stewardship activity

AMS reporting in collaboration with NHS England and NHS Improvement.

In the visualisations linked below, you'll find our interpretation of the reports that we have been producing over the last two years as part of our collaboration with NHS E around Antimicrobial Stewardship. Please note that this is fully public domain data, from the NHS BSA Information Services Portal, and that is commonly used within the public domain - future visualisations will be restricted at the usual levels.

Antibacterial data monthly commissioner, PCN and practice level reporting against NHS System Oversight Framework. Also provides specific antibacterial trend analysis.

Useful AMS data sources

An introduction to the Quality Premium

The Quality Premium is intended to reward clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) for improvements in the quality of the services that they commission and for associated improvements in health outcomes and reducing inequalities. There are new Quality Premium AMR CCG targets for 2017-19, and the guidance sets out the measures for 2017-18 and the levels of improvement for CCGs to achieve in order to qualify for the quality premium.

For more information please visit the NHS England webpage here.

NHS England Quality Premium 2017-19: Reducing Gram Negative Bloodstream Infections (GNBSIs) and inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in at risk groups  – updated targets, early performance, and trimethoprim age banded GP practice data now published. 

CCG targets to reduce use of trimethoprim in people aged 70+ years by 10% have been updated for all CCGs and recalculated on the same baseline data set; this has happened due to rapid system improvements in the identification of patient age for prescription items. Subsequently patient identifiers are now available for 90% of all dispensed prescriptions, compared to 74% when the 10% reduction targets were published. Use of this more accurate data provides CCGs greater certainty of both reduction targets and performance against those targets. The process by which the baseline data has been adjusted, and the 10% reduction targets calculated, will be published in the updated annex part b.

Some CCGs have boundary changes, GP practice movement and name changes from 1st April 2017 and the antibiotic prescribing  targets in part b have been updated in this annex v7. Similar changes to the E.coli BSI targets in part a will be made when PHE have updated their baseline data set, and an amended annex will be uploaded to the NHSE QP website at a later date.

Publication of GP practice level data for the number of trimethoprim items for people aged 70+ years has been calculated for 12 months to Dec 2016 and is accessible via the NHSBSA website. This is an interim solution until the NHSBSA publish the ePACT2 Antimicrobial Stewardship dashboard in June 2017 (April 2017 data) - the NHSBSA will be contacting all CCGs/CSUs to request a nominated AMS lead to allow early access to the AMS dashboard while ePACT2 is rolled out in 2017.

In collaboration with NHS Improvement, the ePACT2 Antimicrobial Stewardship Dashboard is being developed to support the national Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy. The Government is committed to lead the international fight against AMR setting out new ambitions to do this. Following the O’Neill Review of AMR, the Government set the following ambitions:

  • 50% reduction of preventable Gram-negative bloodstream infections (GNBSIs) by 2020/21 – the SRO is Dr Ruth May NHS Improvement
  • 50% reduction of the number of inappropriate antimicrobial prescriptions by 2020 – the SRO is Dr Keith Ridge NHS England

The Antimicrobial Stewardship Dashboard will support delivery of both of these ambitions, providing prescribing data to support local stewardship activity and reporting, and linking to relevant AMR resources such as the PHE AMR Portal and NICE guidelines.

The 2016/17Antibiotic quality premium monitoring dashboard format will be updated for the 2017/18 AMR Quality Premium, with publication monthly on the NHS England website.

NHS England have published the newly updated CCG improvement and assessment framework 2016/17, this contains the below:

  • Two new indicators under the Better Health Section
  • Anti-microbial resistance: Appropriate prescribing of antibiotics in primary care
  • Anti-microbial resistance: Appropriate prescribing of broad spectrum antibiotics in primary care.

CCGs are expected to demonstrate appropriate use of antibiotics and CCG performance against both indicators is reported in the Antibiotic quality premium monitoring dashboard.

NHS Improvement Preventing healthcare associated Gram-negative bloodstream infections associated Gram-negative bloodstream infections: an improvement resource May 2017.

New MOOC starting on FutureLearn 8th May 2017 - Challenges in Antibiotic Resistance: Gram Negative Bacteria

Identify, diagnose and treat gram negative bacterial infections. Gram negative bacteria (GNB) are a group of bacteria that can cause infection and toxic reaction in patients, yet are difficult to differentiate and treat with antibiotics due to their structure.

This online course - led by experts from the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) - looks at this challenge. You’ll explore the microbiology of gram-negative bacteria, and find out how to identify, classify, diagnose and treat GNB infections. You’ll also look at occurrences of GNB and antibiotic resistance worldwide, and understand the impact they have on health and economic outcomes.

Antibiotics in Primary Care

New publications below:

Does a national NHS England incentive scheme to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in primary care deliver improvement?    

NHS Improvement and the NHS BSA have published a poster report of the AMR Quality Premium 2015-17 performance at the PHE conference 11-12th September 2018

Access the PHE ePoster library for events here

The Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUINs)

There is a 2017/19 Reducing the Impact of Serious Infections CQUIN which has combined the previous sepsis and AMR CQUIN to produce a coherent and complementary approach to delivering the CQUIN.

The Goal of the CQUIN is to increase the number of patients screened for sepsis and increase the number of sepsis patients who are administered an antibiotic within 1 hour of diagnosis whilst reducing antibiotic consumption through ensuring antibiotic prescriptions are reviewed by appropriate clinicians within 24 to 72 hours. The rationale is to reduce consumption of antibiotics and optimise prescribing practice by reducing the indiscriminate or inappropriate use of antibiotics which is a key driver in the spread of antibiotic resistance.

NHS Improvement and Public Health England have provided a number of resources to help support the delivery of the CQUIN.

To share examples of antimicrobial CQUINs developed for local use please contact elizabeth.beech@nhs.net or emma.cramp@nhs.net

BCH CQUIN – Quality Premium.docx

Infographics

Behaviour change and public education

  • NICE have published a draft guideline Antimicrobial Resistance - Changing Risk-Related Behaviours in the General Population: Draft Guideline Consultation - This guideline covers interventions to change people’s behaviour to help reduce antimicrobial resistance and stop the spread of resistant microbes. Consultation closes 20 October 2015
  • The Wellcome Trust have published an excellent research based report into consumers attitudes to AMR and antibiotic use - Exploring the Consumer Perspective on Antimicrobial Resistance June 2015
  • Antibiotic Guardian NHS England is a proud supporter of European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD). EAAD is held annually on 18 November as a European-wide event to raise awareness on how to use antibiotics in a responsible way that will help keep them effective for the future. European Antibiotic Awareness Day and Antibiotic Guardian resources can be found here and will be updated to support 2015 activity when available
  • Public Health England have commissioned roadshows on Antibiotic Guardianship that aim to deliver guidance, information and resources to health professionals. Resources to engage, promote and share Antibiotic Guardianship within the attendees’ organisation and with their stakeholders will be provided to delegates. The link for registration for these roadshows is here
  • e-Bugschools resource produced by Public Health England. This is an exciting, fun and free health education resource for teachers and school aged children. The resources make learning about microbes, antibiotic resistance, and the spread, treatment and prevention of infection fun and accessible for all. The e-Bug lesson plans can be used in biology and PSHE lessons, assemblies and health events. All lesson plans are in line with the National Curriculum and are free to download online here. We have partners in 27 countries and our resources are translated in 22 different languages. We need to teach children and young people about antibiotics as they are our future generation of users and prescribers. If we can reduce childhood infections by educating children on infections then we can reduce antibiotic use. If you would like further information on e-Bug please email e-Bug@phe.gov.uk or follow e-Bug on Twitter @eBug_UK
  • Why is Antimicrobial Stewardship Important?- This is a short cartoon video explaining why Antimicrobial Stewardship matters and may be useful for use in presentations or clinical networking events. This video is part of the Mount Sinai Hospital-University Health Network Antimicrobial Stewardship Program with support from CAHO.
  • Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Antimicrobial Stewardship available free here. The following document is available: Future Learn MOOC on Antimicrobial Stewardship
  • The Reducing Antimicrobial Resistance programme has been designed to support all health and social care staff – both clinical and non-clinical - in a variety of settings to understand the threats posed by antimicrobial resistance, and ways they can help to tackle this major health issue. This programme has been developed by Health Education England in collaboration with Public Health England and NHS England.

     

    This programme consists of a single e-learning session entitled ‘Reducing Antimicrobial Resistance: An Introduction’. It provides an overview of how to tackle antimicrobial (antibiotic) resistance, key facts about antimicrobial resistance and describes the important role everyone working in a health and social care environment has in tackling it. By the end of this session, health and social care staff will be able to:

    • Discuss why there is such a concern about misuse of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance
    • List the key risks for development of antimicrobial resistance
    • Identify their role in tackling antimicrobial resistance
  • Provision of social norm feedback to high prescribers of antibiotics in general practice: a pragmatic national randomised controlled trial - This is a report of the research that informed the decision to send CMO letters to the Top 20% antibiotic prescribing GP practices in January 2016.

Chief Medical Officer mailing to GP practices - September 2019

The CMO has sent letters to GPs working in those GP practices whose antibiotic prescribing exceeds the target of 0.965 items/ STAR-PU and to practices who met the target but for whom a 5% increase in prescribing would put them over the target. 

The CMO letters include feedback on the practice’s prescribing level (either relative to the target or relative to their peers, for those who have high levels of antibiotic prescribing compared to their peers), as well as suggestions to prescribe self-care for RTIs and to use delayed or ‘Back-Up’ prescribing interventions. This aligns to the approach in the new NICE Common Infections Guidance. The letter also encourages practices to audit prescribing.

Copies of the letters and sample data graphic are listed below with an excel file listing GP practices by type of letter

This programme has been led by PHE – please contact: Natalie.Gold@phe.gov.uk with any questions.

Summary of CMO letters - September 2019.docx

CMO letter by GP practice and CCG - September 2019.xlsx

CMO letters.zip

Data graphic example.png

Chief Medical Officer mailing to GP practices - November 2018

Chief Medical Officer mailing to GP practices - March 2018

Chief Medical Officer mailing to GP practices - April 2017

Chief Medical Officer mailing to GP practices - January 2016

The Chief Medical Officer has written to individual GPs working in those GP practices that are prescribing high volumes of antibiotics – those in the top 20% based on antibacterial items per STAR-PU (12 months data July 14-June 15). These practices will receive letters similar to the sample posted here, with some variation in content depending on whether the practice has increased its prescribing compared with the previous 12 month period (July 13 – June 14). Clearly more recent prescribing data has since been published, and some practices may have made significant reductions in their prescribing since June 2015.

A copy of the TARGET Treating Your Infection patient information leaflet is also attached to the letter, and practices are encouraged to work with their CCG prescribing advisors

This intervention has been implemented by the Behavioural Insights Team, PHE, DH and NHSE, following a trial carried out by the Behavioural Insights Team 12 months ago. This trial is due to be published soon.

Learning from the initial trial, the implementation team are sharing information about the intervention, the practices involved, and a copy of a letter with CCGs in a timely manner, and are very aware that many CCG teams are working to support the appropriate prescribing and use of antibiotics in primary care.

Behavioural Insights Team antibiotic prescribing top 20% practices.xlsx

Behavioural Insights Team summary of CMO letter.pdf

CMO sample AMR letter sent to GP practices.docx

Diagnostics

  • AMR Review: Rapid Diagnostics - Stopping unnecessary use of antibiotics. October 2015.
  • This report provides an overview of how diagnostics can play an important role in the fight against antimicrobial resistance, by reducing unnecessary use. It addresses how we can improve innovation as well as encourage the uptake of diagnostics.
  • Position Paper on Anti-Microbial Resistance Diagnostics – Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford June 2015. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.1.1135.9846.
    This report highlights the considerable number of new diagnostic technologies in development to underpin the rational prescribing of antibiotics.
  • What a difference a CRP makes. A prospective observational study on how point-of-care C-reactive protein testing influences antibiotic prescription for respiratory tract infections in Swedish primary health care, Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health care, DOI: 10.3109/02813432.2015.1114348
    This study reports the prospective use of CRP point of care testing in Swedish primary care settings for patients with RTIs, and clearly documents the impact on antibiotic prescribing.
  • Tackling Drug-Resistant Infections Globally: Final report and recommendations

Antibiotic Guardian

NHS England is a proud supporter of European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD). EAAD is held annually on 18 November as a European-wide event to raise awareness on how to use antibiotics in a responsible way that will help keep them effective for the future. European Antibiotic Awareness Day and Antibiotic Guardian resources can be found here and will be updated to support 2015 activity when available.

Public Health England have commissioned roadshows on Antibiotic Guardianship that aim to deliver guidance, information and resources to health professionals. Resources to engage, promote and share Antibiotic Guardianship within the attendees’ organisation and with their stakeholders will be provided to delegates. The link for registration for these roadshows is here.

Letters to NHS, local authority and professional organisations have been sent by Public Health England, asking organisations to register their EAAD planned activities. Letters can be found here.

Additional information promoting the use of Antibiotic Guardian resources during EAAD events can be found in the accompanying documents below.

ECDC's short video pledges.pdf

Antibiotic Guardian bulletin - January 2016.eml

PHE AMR campaign launch and World Antibiotic Awareness week 2017

The awareness weeks/day: International Infection Prevention and Control Week (15-21 October), World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW) (13-19 November) and European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD) (18 November) provide an excellent opportunity to engage with health and social care professionals (HCPs), students and the public on AMR. 

Ahead of these initiatives you are invited to:

  • Visit the improvement hub for gram negative bloodstream infections to develop local collaborative actions to reduce these infections.
  • Support the new PHE National AMR Campaign for the public - On 23 October 2017 PHE will launch a national public campaign ‘Keep Antibiotics Working’ (KAW); across England to support the government’s efforts to reduce inappropriate prescriptions for antibiotics by raising awareness of the issue of antibiotic resistance and reducing demand from the public using TV, radio and social media. The messaging for the campaign aims to move patients to a better understanding that  taking antibiotics when they don’t need them puts them and their family at risk and to trust their doctors and healthcare professionals advice regarding the best appropriate treatment for them.  Leaflets, posters, including the Target Treat your Infection Pad will be distributed to healthcare settings including GP surgeries and pharmacists. Resources are available free for HCPs in England to order to use in local awareness campaigns, eg during WAAW or at other times from the PHE campaign resource centre.
  • Register your organisation’s planned local activities for WAAW/EAAD/KAW/AG via the online registration form (this will take less than five minutes). Last year 367 organisations registered their local activities to support WAAW. Activities can include displaying Keep Antibiotics Working or other relevant AMR campaign materials (posters, leaflets), education and training sessions, including AMR information on websites, internal/external newsletters or social media activities. The resources toolkit provides further details. A range of resources including the new logo, social media images are available for download following registration.

You can also:

  • Forward letter from Chief Professional Officers (CMO, CNO, CPO, CSO, CDO); PHE and HEE CE about the awareness campaigns to relevant colleagues (due for publication shortly)
  • Encourage colleagues/members, family, friends and patients to join almost 50,000 individuals who have personally pledged an action to help to tackle antimicrobial resistance by choosing an organisation pledge at the Antibiotic Guardian website.
  • Get creative ideas via the shared learning pages on the Antibiotic Guardian website that highlight recent local and regional projects/campaigns on AMR that were peer-reviewed and shortlisted for the 2017 Antibiotic Guardian awards. These can provide useful ideas for local activities
  • Use social media: use your professional and/or organisation’s social media (Facebook, Twitter) channels to engage and promote key messages on AMR throughout the winter season using #AntibioticGuardian. A social media toolkit is available
  • Encourage health students to earn their Antibiotic Guardian champion badgefor LinkedIn by leading awareness campaigns in their universities and to attend the first national AMR students conference on Saturday 18 November (poster attached). Registration is here.
  • View and share your local antimicrobial resistance Indicators data e.g. on Escherichia coli bacteraemia, Infection Prevention and Control, Antimicrobial Stewardship, AMR, Healthcare Associated Infections with relevant colleagues in your organisation. 

By taking these simple steps you will continue to contribute to preserving antibiotics for the future.

Finally, the Antibiotic Guardian campaign has a new look (Figure 1). If you have already created materials using the previous logo, these do not need to be changed.  We expect both logos will be in use across the country for 2017, but we would encourage a move to the new branding where possiblea head of WAAW 2018. Branding guidelines can be found as part of the toolkit provided following registration here.

Out of hours and urgent care

This section will support the development of antibacterial prescribing comparators for use in OOH and urgent care organisations. To share innovation and successful antimicrobial stewardship activities in OOH and urgent care organisations here please contact: elizabeth.beech@nhs.net

Bristol CCG CQUIN for community services provider

This is a NHS Bristol CCG CQUIN that was agreed with its community services provider (Bristol Community Health) in 2015/16. Bristol Community Health provides a range of services in the Bristol area (Community Matrons, District Nursing etc.) but notably also an Urgent Care Centre/Walk in Centre. Prescribing by Bristol Community Health is attributed to Bristol CCG, rather than to BCH itself as an independent sector healthcare provider. BCH prescribing therefore affects Bristol CCG’s Quality Premium achievement.

Please direct queries to: jon.hayhurst@bristolccg.nhs.uk 

BCH CQUIN – Quality Premium

TARGET patient information leaflets

The TARGET patient information leaflet has now been adapted for use by OOH and Community Pharmacy providers.

Treating your infection - out of hours clinics

Treating your infection - community pharmacies

Community and out patient IV antibiotic services

Urinary Tract Infections (UTI)

Key reports and links

AMR and AMS publications

Please find below AMR and AMS publications that you may find useful: 

  • UK National 5 Year Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy 2013-18
  • Annual Progress Report and Implementation Plan 2014 - The 7 key areas for action:
    • Improving infection prevention and control practices
    • Optimising prescribing practice
    • Improving professional education, training and public engagement
    • Developing new drugs, treatments and diagnostics
    • Better access to and use of surveillance data
    • Better identification and prioritisation of AMR research needs
    • Strengthened international collaboration 
  • Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infections: Annual Reports - ARHAI is the expert scientific advisory committee providing independent advice to the Department of Health on antimicrobial resistance and healthcare-associated infection. The committee provides advice on policies and guidance to minimise healthcare-associated infections, and to conserve the effectiveness of antibiotics by encouraging best practice in prescribing.
  • English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance (ESPAUR) Report 2015 has been published
  • English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance (ESPAUR) Report 2014 - this reports antimicrobial resistance for drug-bug combinations and antibiotic consumption at a whole health economy level based on an NHS area team footprint using a combined unit of measurement: Defined Daily Dose per 1000 inhabitants per day. Key messages are:
    • The number of patients with bloodstream infections has increased each year from 2010 to 2013
    • There were an increased number of bloodstream infections where antibiotic resistance was identified
    • Antibiotic prescribing has increased in England year on year
    • The majority of antibiotic prescribing takes place in the community (ie general practice)
    • There is considerable variability in both antibiotic resistance and antibiotic prescribing across England; frequently areas with high prescribing also have high resistance
    • Individual healthcare organisations should use this data to benchmark their organisation
  • Review on Antimicrobial Resistance - Responding to mounting international concern about the rise of drug-resistant infections, the UK Prime Minister, The Rt Hon David Cameron MP, commissioned Jim O’Neill in July 2014 to chair this review on antimicrobial resistance. The Review has published Antimicrobial Resistance: Tackling a Crisis for the Health and Wealth of Nations which explains why failing to tackle drug-resistant infections will cause 10 million deaths a year and cost up to US $100 trillion by 2050. 

Comparative deaths AMR

  • National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies 2015 - AMR has been included in the register as an emerging serious long-term issue; pandemic flu is also included in the register.
    The report states that the numbers of infections complicated by AMR are expected to increase markedly over the next 20 years. If a widespread outbreak were to occur, we could expect around 200,000 people to be affected by a bacterial blood infection that could not be treated effectively with existing drugs, and around 80,000 of these people might die. High numbers of deaths could also be expected from other forms of antimicrobial resistant infection.
  • NHS Scotland report: Antimicrobial Use and Resistance in Humans in 2014
  • Position Paper on AMR Diagnostics June 2015 This excellent report, commissioned by the Department of Health,  provides an overview of the diagnostic technologies (including c-reactive protein) that improve the appropriate prescribing of antibiotics, and reports on the evidence base.
  • Tackling Drug-Resistant Infections Globally: Final report and recommendations
  • PHE have published the English surveillance programme for antimicrobial utilisation and resistance ESPAUR 2017 report here - this reports details of bacterial resistance, with a focus on UTI and gram negative blood stream infections GNBSI, and CPE. It also reports on antibiotic consumption at a whole health economy scale, and by primary, community, and  secondary care settings. It includes dental NHS antibiotic prescribing trends as well.

Commissioning resources and toolkits

This section links to resources to support antimicrobial stewardship activities with commissioning pathways.

NHS England Quality Premium Guidance 2018-19 - The Quality Premium is intended to reward clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) for improvements in the quality of the services that they commission and for associated improvements in health outcomes and reducing inequalities.

Guidelines and resources

TARGET antibiotics

Health Education England resources

  • Health Education England antimicrobial resistance resources: Educational materials and resources to help staff training on infection prevention and control, antimicrobial resistance and stewardship.
  • e-Learning for Health (eLfH) antimicrobial resistance resources: Freely available learning sessions for all NHS health and social care staff – both clinical and non-clinical - in a variety of settings on management of various infections (covering urinary tract infections, sepsis, skin and soft tissue infections), infection prevention and control, antimicrobial resistance and stewardship and clinical and medical leadership.
  • Health Education England sepsis awareness resources: Educational materials and resources to help staff training on the recognition and management of sepsis.
  • e-Learning for Health (eLfH) sepsis resources: Freely available learning sessions for all NHS health and social care staff covering primary care, secondary care and paediatrics to help ‘think sepsis’.
  • e-Learning for Health (eLfH) statutory and mandatory e-learning on infection prevention and control Level 1: This session covers the statutory and mandatory training for Infection Prevention and Control (Level 1) and has been designed to meet the relevant learning outcomes in the UK Core Skills Training Framework.
  • e-Learning for Health (eLfH) statutory and mandatory e-learning on infection prevention and control Level 2: This session covers the statutory and mandatory training for Infection Prevention and Control (Level 2) and has been designed to meet the relevant learning outcomes in the UK Core Skills Training Framework.
  • An introduction to reducing antimicrobial resistance e-learning module: Aimed at all health and social care staff this learning e-learning module contains resources to support awareness and education of clinical staff on antimicrobial resistance in different care settings.
  • A film guide for GPs on antimicrobial resistance: This film introduce and supports a range of educational materials for GPs and other primary-care prescribers called theTARGET toolkitand a short informative but simple animation that can be used by GPs and other health professionals when speaking with patients about the risks of antibiotic resistance and misuse.
  • Antimicrobial resistance animation to share with patients: This is aimed at the public to help clinicians respond appropriately to patients requesting antibiotics without medical need.
  • Paediatric sepsis safety netting resources from e-Learning for Health (eLfH): Practical resources for clinicians to share with patients and carers (as part of safety-netting) in a variety of clinical settings.
  • We are pleased to let you know that ourantimicrobial resistance (AMR) training resources guideis now available to access on our website

    As part of our work (HEE 2016) we stated we would “explore developing a guide to learning materials for antimicrobial resistance and infection, that signposts prescribers and other staff to available educational sessions that will help support learning in the system”.

    The purpose of this guide is to promote available learning on the management of infective states, infection prevention and control, antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship by: 

    1. Signposting educational materials available to health workers and students.
    2. Providing a centralised resource portal to educators on supporting learners.
    3. Supporting commissioning, regulatory and quality improvement teams (including infection prevention and control and antimicrobial management teams) by highlighting available educational resources to improve practice.
    4. Encouraging learners to access available learning sessions to support their learning needs. 
    5. Highlighting learning sessions that can be embedded within clinical training pathways.

       

We would encourage you to raise awareness of this resource guide within your organisations and networks.

Friendly URL

For further information please contactMohamed Sadak (Clinical Lead and Programme Manager, Antimicrobial Resistance and Sepsis).

  • Health Education England has surveyed the inclusion of competencies developed by the Government’s expert advisory committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection (ARHAI) and Public Health England (PHE) into health professional curricula and the education approaches for the responsible prescribing of antimicrobials.

    Within both these reports we made a recommendation that HEE will explore the feasibility of an individualised online formative assessment tool for health students and health professionals to support learning on infection prevention and control (IPC) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and stewardship (AMS).

    Our report outlines the methodology in consulting stakeholders on this feasibility and the conclusions made in considering a system wide formative assessment. A number of learning resources are already available for different professional groups around antimicrobial resistance and stewardship and infection prevention and control.

    Most professional groups do not have formal assessment processes to support learning on AMR/IPC/AMS. The term ‘individualised’ needs defining with a clear scope on whether individuals or professional groups will be targeted in different working environments and stages in their career

    HEE will consider outcomes from this work, that will inform the future direction of our antimicrobial resistance and sepsis programme.

    HEE Tackling antimicrobial resistance the role of formative assessments
  • HEE Innovation Fund – Invitation to Tender

    Reducing the threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains high on the national agenda. HEE is expected to take forward a prioritised programme of work, in support of the Government's ambitions to halve healthcare associated Gram-negative blood stream infections and inappropriate antimicrobial prescribing by 2020/21, making use of effective diagnostic tests. This also includes an assessment of workforce needs in relation to infection prevention and control.

    We have set up an AMR Innovation Fund to encourage and support initiatives that will contribute to workforce development in this area, through education and training, particularly around behaviour change with evidence of outcomes.

    Suitably qualified bidders are invited to tender. Please follow this link for further information.

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