Each year thousands of lives are lost due to antibiotic-resistant infections. In order to combat the alarming rise in antibiotic resistance in the UK, guidance has been published by organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to help govern the use of antibiotics. In 2018 our team conducted an audit investigating antimicrobial stewardship on the general surgical wards at the Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth. This demonstrated poor compliance to the national guidance in the UK on safe antimicrobial prescribing. Our initial intervention was creating posters on the correct procedure of prescribing antibiotics in key clinical areas to promote good practice. A re-audit showed a minor improvement in compliance however this was not significant and consequently we looked into different ways of changing clinical practice. We chose to explore whether educating the prescribers about the importance of antibiotic stewardship and the clinical significance of that would be a more effective method of changing practice.

Working with the microbiology department, we formulated a teaching programme spanning four weeks. After the sessions were completed, we re-audited the surgical wards. This showed a clear improvement in compliance. This suggests the intervention was effective at impacting local clinical practice. We concluded therefore that it is possible and effective to provide relatively short and basic teaching schemes to effectively promote antimicrobial stewardship and change practice.