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Antimicrobial resistance
When the organisms that cause infection evolve ways to survive treatments, such as antibiotics, it is called antimicrobial resistance. Resistance is increased and accelerated by various factors such as misuse of medicines, poor infection control practices and global trade and travel.
Health Education England (HEE) is a key stakeholder in the implementation of the Government’s 20-year vision and 5-year action plan to tackle antimicrobial resistance. To achieve this, we are:
- promoting awareness of antimicrobial resistance, encourage those prescribing, dispensing and administrating antibiotics to do so responsibly and with an understanding of antimicrobial resistance.
- supporting system-wide improvement, surveillance, infection prevention and control practice, and antimicrobial stewardship, ensuring resources are available for clinical expertise and senior leadership at all levels.
- improving professional education and training about antimicrobial resistance, ensuring it is included in the preventing, management and control of infection curricula for human medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and other professionals
HEE resources on infections and antimicrobial resistance
This video introduces the resources currently available from HEE on infections and antimicrobial resistance, how to access them and opportunities for their use.
Visit the Antimicrobial Resistance and Infections programmes on e-learning for Healthcare for more information.
Reports
We have published a number of reports which include recommendations for ourselves and stakeholders about what resources are available to support learning and what gaps in provision should be filled.
Embedding national antimicrobial prescribing and stewardship competences into curricula: A survey of health education institutions
We worked with Public Health England to ensure that the competencies developed by the Government’s expert advisory committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection are embedded into relevant curricula.
These competences provide clarity for regulators, education providers and professional bodies on what competencies they should be incorporating, and should inform standards, guidance and the development of training. This would also help to improve professional education, training and public engagement to improve clinical practice and promote wider understanding of the need for more sustainable use of antimicrobials.
To begin this work, we asked higher education institutions about the extent to which these antimicrobial prescribing and stewardship competences have been embedded into their curricula/ Read the full report and the executive summary.
We also agreed that we needed to identify whether there are any gap areas in the educational resources that are available to support current prescribers with the prescribing of antimicrobials.
Combating antimicrobial resistance: Educational approaches for the responsible prescribing of antimicrobials
We worked with stakeholders to explore the factors that help or hinder staff being able to access information and education on antimicrobial resistance and identify good practice materials for promotion.
The Health and Social Care Act (2008) states that employers should ensure that all their staff who prescribe medicines should be given induction and training in responsible antimicrobial use and are familiar with the antimicrobial resistance and stewardship competencies.
However, according to the results of our survey not all employers and providers are delivering on this. Read the full report and the executive summary.
Tackling antimicrobial resistance: educational priorities
As a result of the above survey, we asked those that train healthcare workers what works well in an educational environment, what the challenges are, and how we might support the education of prudent, responsible use of antimicrobials.
The 'Tackling antimicrobial resistance – educational priorities' report explores the perspectives about educational interventions that may help address antimicrobial resistance in different healthcare settings, as well as any barriers for implementation. Read the full report and the executive summary.
This report found that whilst a number of learning resources are already available for different professional groups around antimicrobial resistance and stewardship and infection prevention and control, most professional groups do not have formal assessment processes to support learning on antimicrobial resistance.
An evaluation of our antimicrobial resistance introductory e-learning session, and national infection prevention and control training
An introductory free e-learning module, Reducing Antimicrobial Resistance has been developed to support all health and social care staff understand the threats posed by antimicrobial resistance and ways they can help to tackle it.
We have evaluated the visibility and uptake of this module by individuals and organisations in the report An evaluation of our antimicrobial resistance introductory e-learning session, and national infection prevention and control training. The also makes recommendations on how organisations can enhance staff training using this module on antimicrobial resistance. Read the full report and the executive summary.
A short guide to learning resources on management of infective states, infection prevention and control, antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship has been produced, signposting prescribers and other staff to available educational sessions that will help support their learning.