Following the publication of both the English surveillance programme for antimicrobial utilisation and resistance (ESPAUR) report 2020-2021 and its Scottish equivalent, Scottish One Health Antimicrobial Use and Antimicrobial Resistance in 2020, it might be tempting to celebrate the reported fall in the number of deaths in England attributable to antibiotic-resistance (AMR), as well as the overall decline in antibiotic consumption across England and Scotland. Yet we must remember that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will have, in all likelihood, distorted the picture.

To celebrate our 50th anniversary, we’re inviting a select number of experts to share what they see as being the 21st-century solutions to one of the biggest and most complex challenges of our generation: antimicrobial resistance. In this post, Dilip Nathwani explores the future of healthcare workers and antimicrobial stewardship...

Drug resistant infections and the superbugs that cause them are an increasing challenge for health systems, globally. The technical term is antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which occurs when microorganisms evolve to resist medicines, represents an exceptional and growing threat to the way we treat diseases, to the way we are enabled to perform routine surgeries and to the way we roll out treatments when we temporarily suppress the immune system, including chemotherapy.

Initiated in 1999, BSAC’s flagship Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Programme amassed a collection of almost 100,000 isolates from a range of clinically significant species, which provided many benefits to the research community and industry sponsors alike.

Medical students are the prescribers of the future. Unfortunately, extremely little attention has been focused on training them in the principles of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), as evidenced by surveys that have consistently shown that final-year medical students lack confidence in correctly prescribing antibiotics.

As part of an ongoing series, our journal, JAC-AMR, is shining the spotlight on qualitative research in the field of antimicrobial stewardship, with the aim of expanding and strengthening qualitative research in this field. In this post, Dr Dena van den Bergh explores the under-recognised value of qualitative research, and why new need more publishing space for multidisciplinary qualitative research.

We are seeking nominations for Members of Council from across all areas of membership. Candidates should ideally have been involved in Society activities at some level and have a demonstrable understanding of BSAC and its strategic aims and direction.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has understandably hogged the headlines for the last few years, there is another, ‘slow-motion’ pandemic taking place at the same time: Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). In this post, Dr Louise Sweeney, Consultant Medical Microbiologist, Liverpool, explores what COVID-19 can teach us when it comes to treating all infectious diseases…