Commonwealth health partnerships to improve antimicrobial stewardship announced!


Following a successful competition, the Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) scheme, has selected 12 projects to run across Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana and Zambia.

The Fleming Fund is pleased to announce the 12 successful partnerships selected through the Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) scheme. This selection comes following the project launch in September 2018, where the Fleming Fund committed £1.3m in UK aid to support new or existing partnerships between NHS trusts and UK health institutions and their counterparts across the 4 African Commonwealth countries.

Through these partnerships multidisciplinary teams of NHS pharmacists, doctors and specialist nurses will link with teams in partnered institutions and undertake projects of up to 15 months. These projects aim to improve AMS practices through raising awareness, improving protocols and developing tools that will reduce the spread and increase of AMR.

DHSC is delighted to be funding institutions from across the UK with strong records in antibiotic stewardship such as: Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust; Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust; and Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Alongside these trusts, the project is funding a host of education and research institutions to support these partnerships such as: Brighton and Sussex Medical school; University of Manchester; and Nottingham Trent University. See below for the full list of grantees.

“The quality of all the proposals received was extremely high and the selected NHS teams will make a great impact working in partnership with teams on stewardship practices across Africa. The UK has a lot to share in antimicrobial stewardship and it’s encouraging to see such an interest in sharing learning between the NHS and the partner countries.”

Professor Keith Ridge, England’s Chief Pharmaceutical Officer

Through partnerships like those under the Fleming Fund, UK aid is helping bring improvements to healthcare to more and more people across the continent, as well as delivering global benefits. These latest successful partnerships follow the UK government’s 5-year action plan and 20-year vision for AMR published earlier this year, which the role of stewardship and international engagement was highlighted as key to have AMR contained and controlled by 2040.

Partnerships:

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On 24th and 25th June 2021, the Tropical Health and Education Trust ([THET](https://www.thet.org/)) and the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association ([CPA](https://commonwealthpharmacy.org/)) hosted a two-day sharing and learning event which brought together over 100 delegates from across the global health community to celebrate and showcase the work of the Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) grant holders and the programmatic level outputs.

NHS pharmacists to volunteer to support local health workers in Commonwealth African countries to fight antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

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