Celebrating our achievements at the Antibiotic Guardian Awards 2023
The sixth Antibiotic Guardian Shared Learning and Awards event took place on the 2nd of May 2023 in London
The Antibiotic Guardian Awards is an initiative by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to recognise individuals and organisations that have made outstanding contributions to promote the responsible use of antibiotics and reducing the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections. The awards aim to raise awareness about the importance of preserving antibiotics for future generations and encourages healthcare professionals, patients and the public to pledge to become Antibiotic Guardians by taking simple actions to help prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance.
The awards are presented annually to winners across different categories, including healthcare professionals, researchers, students, and community groups.
This year’s Antibiotic Guardian awards exemplified the One Health approach featuring a diverse range of entries from multi-professional disciplines across both human and animal health, demonstrating the enthusiasm and passion that many different healthcare professionals have in addressing AMR.
We were delighted that three of our projects were shortlisted in three categories this year which recognised achievements both through our Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMs) and The Surveillance and Prescribing Support for Antimicrobial Stewardship Resource Capacity Building (SPARC) programmes as follows:
Innovation and Technology: Commonwealth Pharmacists Association – AMS game project
Prescribing and Stewardship: Commonwealth Pharmacists Association –SPARC project, and
Multi-country Collaboration: Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) and Commonwealth Pharmacists Association – AMS Explainer Videos
One of the Health partnerships from CwPAMS – Nottingham Trent University, Makerere University, Uganda and Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust was also shortlisted in the Multi-country Collaboration category.
Read more about the other shortlisted projects here.
Following an evening of extensive excitement, with keynote speakers Susan Hopkins (Chief Medical Advisor for UKHSA), Richard Irvine (Chief Veterinary Officer for Wales) and Vanessa Carter (Executive Director of The AMR Narrative and patient advocate) we were delighted to receive an award within the Innovation and Technology category for our CwPAMS Antimicrobial Stewardship game (AMS game). The AMS game is a training tool for diverse groups of healthcare professionals including nurses, doctors, pharmacists, cleaners and others working across all One Health sectors. The game encourages players to explore the practicalities of Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) and the different ways we can all help to reduce Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and was developed working together with Focus Games.
We also celebrated the success of one of our CwPAMS health partnerships between Nottingham Trent University, Makerere University, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust and Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital (ERRH) who were winners of the Multi-country Collaboration category. They presented their One Health approach to scaling up interventions for strengthening antimicrobial stewardship in Wakiso District, Uganda. Since 2019, the project has seen 151 community health workers, 540 healthcare professionals, 53 health and animal health practitioners and 250 students trained in antimicrobial awareness, infection prevention and control and antimicrobial stewardship strategies.
Overview of CwPAMS
Since July 2018, the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association (CPA) and Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) have been collaborating with member organisations to raise awareness of AMR through our Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) Programme. To this end, we have been actively promoting the Antibiotic Guardian pledges through our networks.
The Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) is a health partnership programme funded by the UK Aid Fleming Fund to tackle Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) globally. CwPAMS is managed by the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association (CPA) and the Tropical Health Education Trust (THET) which is an international NGO with expertise in delivering global health partnerships.
CwPAMS aim has been to enhance implementation of protocols and evidenced based decision making to support antimicrobial prescribing, as well as capacity for antimicrobial use surveillance. The Fleming Fund is a £265 million UK aid investment to tackle antimicrobial resistance by supporting low- and middle-income countries to generate, use and share data on AMR. The programme is managed by the UK Department of Health and Social Care.
Overview of SPARC
SPARC builds on the technical expertise of the Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) programme.
SPARC is funded through a Fleming Fund alignment grant, which is managed by Mott MacDonald, and works with stakeholders across the whole health ecosystem in each region and has a centralised approach to delivering its core projects through:
- A new mobile App to support prudent antimicrobial prescribing in human and animal health called the Prescribing Companion App
- Point Prevalence Survey (PPS) data collection on the use of antimicrobials, and;
- Support and training for continuous quality improvement (QI) in antimicrobial stewardshi
As the Antibiotic Guardian Awards for this year come to an end, we would like to extend our congratulations to all the nominees and winners. We remain committed to our efforts to combat Antimicrobial Resistance across the Commonwealth and look forward to continuing this important work.
