University of Leeds (Wendy Thompson)

Why are you nominating them for this award?
Please provide clear reasons/evidence of how the person has excelled in delivering antimicrobial stewardship quality improvement.

Having been involved with the development of the UK dental antimicrobial stewardship toolkit, Wendy, a general dental practitioner who successfully attained an NIHR fellowship, has championed its uptake throughout the NHS and beyond. She was first involved with development and evaluation of an embryonic toolkit by the NHS Local Dental Network in Cheshire & Merseyside. As a member of the dental subgroup of the Public Health England-led English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance (ESPAUR), Wendy was involved with rolling it out nationwide and disseminating it through continuing professional development lectures to dentists for Health Education England, British Dental Conference and the British Dental Industries Association.

With UK in a leading position on dental antimicrobial stewardship, Wendy saw the opportunity to champion the approach world-wide. At the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) in London (2018), she led a symposium in which the WHO Director of AMR, Marc Sprenger gave the key notes address, speakers from the UK and Asian Pacific region presented their latest AMS research

At IADR Vancouver 2019, Wendy was again invited to lead a seminar on dental antimicrobial stewardship which gave a platform for other nations to share their new research about dental antimicrobial stewardship interventions. Wendy talked about the UK toolkit, its recent evolution (eg to include advice about analgesic prescribing) and future direction of travel, including her doctoral research to develop new evidence-based and behavioural theory-informed tools to fit gaps in the current toolkit.

Having heard Wendy speak about her work at IADR, FDI World Dental Federation approached her to be lead author for its white paper on the role of the dental profession in tackling AMR. This paper is scheduled for launch at the World Dental Congress in Shanghai later this year. A MOOC is also being developed ( led by Wendy) in partnership between FDI and BSAC to engage the dental profession in doing their part to address AMR globally.

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (Bee Yean Ng)

Why are you nominating them for this award?
Please provide clear reasons/evidence of how the person has excelled in delivering antimicrobial stewardship quality improvement.

In 2019, I had the opportunity to be a part of a Commonwealth Partnership for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) project together with Nottingham Trent and Makerere Universities with the aim of strengthening antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) in Wakiso District, Uganda.

After a scoping visit in April 2019, material was compiled and designed for a two-day workshop aimed at healthcare professionals and inclusive of veterinary workers from Wakiso District. I developed case studies with other BHT colleagues using the Ugandan Clinical Guidelines and WHO AMS competency checklist. In order to simulate real life cases and make the sessions more engaging and interactive, I designed a case study, in the form of a game. This involved rolling die and choosing option cards that led to different outcomes following a respiratory tract infection scenario. Role-play was also used, supported by the Target Toolkit resources. All material was designed through an AMS lens and considered ideas, practices and needs identified by our Ugandan colleagues. It was key to encompass a one-health approach so that participants engaged with multiple perspectives of how AMR affects them in both personal and professional settings.

Three two-day workshops were delivered over two weeks. A total of 86 Healthcare Professionals (HPs) and an additional 227 Community Health Workers (CHWs) were trained on AMS. Up to 64/80 (80%) of the HPs and 206/212 (97%) CHWs reported increased knowledge immediately after the training.

It was a privilege to be able to co-deliver the workshop with other professions and work across boundaries as a new experience for me. I feel that I have gained so much more than I have given. After this experience, we have changed the way we deliver teaching sessions at BHT, incorporating behavior change aspects to facilitate urinary tract infection CQUIN updates for infection prevention link nurses.

Aster Medcity, Kochi, India (Balram Rathish)

Why are you nominating them for this award?
Please provide clear reasons/evidence of how the person has excelled in delivering antimicrobial stewardship quality improvement.

Dr. Rathish has been involved with our hospital’s antimicrobial stewardship programme from its initial stages and was instrumental in its initiation. He has worked with the stewardship team and conducted multiple Quality improvement projects with respect to antimicrobial stewardship. As a part of these projects, he has run multiple PDSA cycles in QIPs involving antimicrobial stewardship, anti fungal stewardship, Empirical antibiotic selection in acute admissions etc. He has presented the results and has been able to demonstrate a positive impact on antibiotic consumption and clinical outcomes. He has been able to present and publish his QIPs on international platforms and reputed medical journals. His latest QIP on Empirical antibiotic selection in acute admissions has assisted in making policy changes to the hospital antibiotic policy, and revisions in prescribing patterns. He has also completed multiple courses and MOOCs on stewardship outside his regular Core medical training curriculum, highlighting his dedication and passion to the specialty. Dr. Rathish was also recently granted membership into the prestigious ESCMID study group on antimicrobial stewardship (ESGAP) at a relatively early stage in his career. I firmly believe that there is no better candidate than Dr. Rathish who has demonstrated passion and results in Quality improvement in the field of Antimicrobial stewardship at this stage of their career, and this award would be the ideal reflection of his efforts.

Belfast Health & Social Care Trust (Aaron Brady)

Why are you nominating them for this award?
Please provide clear reasons/evidence of how the person has excelled in delivering antimicrobial stewardship quality improvement.

Dr Aaron Brady is an Antimicrobial Pharmacist at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (BHSCT) and a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB).
To promote AMS within Northern Ireland, and to coincide with World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2019, Dr Brady devised, organised and chaired a multidisciplinary symposium titled ‘From Stewardship to Sepsis’ held in Riddel Hall on the 19th November 2019.
The free-to-attend event received CPD accreditation from the Royal College of Anaesthetists and sponsorship from Pfizer, with speakers from King’s College London, The Royal Marsden, BHSCT and QUB highlighting current AMS challenges in both clinical practice and academia.
The sold-out event was attended by over 120 pharmacists, medics, IPC nurses and biomedical scientists and the day-long program provided something for all disciplines.
The program covered a wide range of topics with talks as follows:

• Reducing Drug Errors Associated with Antimicrobial Prescribing (Mrs Gillian Cavell)
• AMS in the Immunocompromised Population: The Royal Marsden Experience (Ms Celia Noblett)
• Gram-Negative Sepsis and Novel Antimicrobial Agents (Dr Judith Troughton)
• WHO Access, Watch, and Reserve Classification: AWaRe (Dr Yingfen Hsia)
• Managing Sepsis in the Immunocompromised Host (Dr Emmet Major)

In addition, the debate session: ‘How can we successfully treat Gram-negative sepsis while reducing our use of carbapenems?’, prompted lively discussion between the multidisciplinary audience.
The symposium also hosted poster presentations on local research including AMS in the HIV Population and Ward Level AMS Groups, while coffee and lunch afforded the opportunity for different disciplines to network.
Extensive feedback on the event was overwhelmingly positive and to link with the theme of the event Dr Brady raised over £250 in charitable donations for The Sepsis Trust.
Dr Brady intends for the symposium to become an annual event and Thursday 11th March 2021 has already been pencilled in for the 2nd symposium.