The UK Health Security Agency has created a new campaign to help keep antibiotics working. Fronted by our mascot Andi Biotic, who is on a mission to make people aware of the correct ways to use antibiotics so we can all help to tackle the threat of AMR. You can watch the videos and read more in this blog.

Our research tells us that there is a high level of public awareness about the risks of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to the nation’s health, yet most people do not know what they can personally do to combat it.  Misconceptions about antibiotics and incorrect behaviours remain prevalent among the groups that use antibiotics the most – younger people and ethnic minority groups.

As a result, we have created a campaign that aims to increase public awareness and understanding of the correct and incorrect antibiotic behaviours, using the below three messages:

1. Don’t take antibiotics for colds and flu
2. Don’t save antibiotics for later
3. Take antibiotics as directed by your healthcare professional.

The primary target audiences of our campaign are:

Adults aged 18-34 with a focus on:

• males
• Black/Black British & Asian/Asian British communities
• people in the C2DE social grade.

The campaign will be rolled out via the social media channels of UKHSA and our partners and will be supported with a suite of print assets and a program of media activity.

How stakeholders (organisations) can get involved with the campaign

There are a variety of ways that you might be able to help us communicate the importance of using antibiotics correctly to our audiences.

• Share information about the campaign with your networks – we have a wide variety of resources available including videos, static visual assets and gifs for social media, posters, leaflets and suggested copy for cascade to your audiences. Assets will be translated into priority languages and designed in line with common accessibility standards. We will also provide editable files to facilitate partner co-branding.

• Contact us if you would like to do something more bespoke – if you are looking to do something special to promote awareness of the correct/incorrect AMR behaviours on your social media channels or website and need some creative input or suggested text for a blog/article please email us.

• Get in touch about using our spokespeople – if you are planning a webinar or briefing for your audiences and would like one of our senior colleagues to speak about the Keep Antibiotics Working campaign, or our broader efforts as an organisation to combat AMR, please get in touch.

To discuss any of the above or any other suggestions you may have, please email

externalaffairs@ukhsa.gov.uk