Antibiotic Guardian Awards – Comments from previous winners

The Awards have seen a host of health professionals from the fields of human health, animal health, and the food supply chain, highlighting the collaboration and engagement from the various sectors.

Previous winners highlighted the positive impact the awards have made on both a professional and personal level when asked what impact the awards has had on them:

“It has encouraged the UK farming and veterinary communities to be proud of the huge progress they have made in terms of responsible use, and has given them further motivation. Furthermore, it has underlined that this is a One Health issue that must be owned by us all in animal and human healthcare alike.” – Amy Jackson from the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance, 2018 winner in the ‘Prescribing & Stewardship’ category

“Applying for the Antibiotic Guardian awards this year is one of the most progressive decisions I have made in terms of my academic career. Not only has it been a great networking platform and raised my platform in the AMR community, allowing me to travel across the UK ago share my research in panel discussions, but it has also been incredibly personally fulfilling. It has been such a pleasure to mingle with professionals in this field to truly understand the wider picture- both on the night and beyond throughout 2018. I would sincerely encourage you to apply if you have conducted any research within this field! This is your chance to collaborate with academics worldwide.” – Rose-of-Sharon Brade from the University of Leeds, 2018 Highly Commended award in the ‘Research’ category

“The award raised both awareness of our on-going work to increase healthcare professionals’ knowledge of antimicrobial stewardship locally, but also assisted in raising the profile of our organisation nationally.”  – Alaistair Monk from the NECS, 2016 winner in the ‘Stewardship’ category

The 2018 awards celebrated the hard work of over 200 professionals with Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, on hand that evening, who herself has led the way on driving awareness on the global threat posed by antimicrobial resistance. 2018 also saw the introduction of a category in honour of one such health professional. Das Pillay, a microbiologist based in Birmingham who scooped an award himself before tragically passing away only months later. In honour of Dr Pillay’s efforts to tackle antimicrobial resistance the awards dedicated a category aimed at recognising those emerging professionals entering the AMR field with the winner and runner up receiving grant money towards further training and career development.

In its inaugural year, the Das Pillay award was taken home by Susan Bowler, an Antimicrobial Nurse based in Nottingham. Speaking of the awards Susan said:

“I was both shocked and delighted when I won the Das Pillay Memorial award. It is fantastic that the award was won by an Antimicrobial Stewardship Nurse and on a personal level, is a true celebration of our quality improvement work here in Nottingham, engaging & educating nurses about their essential role in Diagnostic Stewardship to improve patient care. I am absolutely committed to continuing this amazing journey as an Antimicrobial Stewardship nurse specialist and plan to use monies received for personal educational development in this field to allow me to ensure that Antimicrobial Stewardship is deeply embedded within our nursing culture.”

Alongside the Das Pillay Memorial award are ten categories including Community Engagement, Prescribing, Diagnostics and many more.  As we move into 2019, Public Health England will continue to support and work with partners across all sectors in the health system to tackle antimicrobial resistance both locally and abroad.

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