CwPAMS Evaluation

Evaluation of the Commonwealth Pharmacists Antimicrobial Stewardship Programme

Measuring our impact

Following the conclusion of the Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) programme at the end of June 2021, we are pleased to share with you the addendum for the full period which was extended due to COVID-19.

An evaluation to report back on the initial CwPAMS programmes implemented in Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana and Uganda was performed by Ingentium who are a leading market intelligence and intellectual property (IP) advisory firm based in Edinburgh, UK. CwPAMS was scored on various criteria including its health partnership approach, sustainability, NHS benefit and OECD-DAC impact.

Some important findings of the CwPAMS evaluation report included:

1. The CwPAMS Programme has produced empirical evidence to demonstrate improved practice relating to AMS and prescribing practice within the LMIC workforce and their associated health care institutions.

2. All health partnerships have developed and implemented AMS strategies, guidelines and tools within their hospitals which are important in ensuring the sustainability of CwPAMS’ interventions. These AMS strategies have also played a key role in tackling COVID-19.

3. NHS staff were able to translate the knowledge and skills they had received early in the Programme into clinical practice in response to COVID-19 challenges. They felt their participation in CwPAMS made them better equipped to deal with the limited resources and additional stresses brought on by COVID-19.

CwPAMS provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate the value of applying a health partnership approach to AMS in both the UK and LMICs. More than 7 health partnerships averaged a “VERY GOOD” score of impact in the evaluation. Further, the impact score has significantly increased over the last 2 quarters, making the CwPAMS programme commendable for our ability to achieve significant long term intended and unintended effects. The collective programme-level results were calculated at 82 (VERY GOOD) between Quarter 1 – 5.

Detailed indicators between Quarter 4-5 of the evaluation concluded with the following scores:

Relevance: 73 (VERY GOOD)
Impact: 85 (VERY GOOD)
Effectiveness: 96 (EXCELLENT)
Efficiency: 58 (GOOD)
Sustainability: 85 (VERY GOOD)

These evaluation results provide a clear demonstration for the value of health partnerships in AMS between the UK and LMICs, particularly where access to learning and other resources are inaccessible and disease burdens are high.

With the second round of CwPAMS funding applications open on 19 July 2021 to expand on these existing and new antimicrobial stewardship programmes into eight African countries including Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia we look forward to another positive analysis on completion of those programmes in 2022 and thank all our past partners for their commitment to tackling antimicrobial resistance together.

Click on an image below to download either the CwPAMS evaluation or addendum report.

Following the successful completion of our Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s Global Health Fellows (CPhOGH Fellows) programme which consisted of 16 pharmacists in the UK working alongside the various CwPAMS projects in four African regions, an evaluation was completed to measure the further impact of leadership development in the UK.