Antibiotic Amnesty 2016

Tim Rawson at Amnesty

During our activities for World Antibiotic Awareness Week, a range of antibiotics were surrendered and over 267 people signed up to become Guardians

Last week, to mark World Antibiotic Awareness Week, members of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance, held an Antibiotic Amnesty on the Hammersmith Campus and the South Kensington Campus.

College staff and students were encouraged to bring unwanted antibiotics to the team over lunch time for safe disposal or to sign up to become Antibiotic Guardians at www.antibioticguardian.com.  Members of the team handed out both chocolate and information about resistance and discussed with people what actions they could take as individuals to help tackle the global threat.  Students at South Kensington also played Dicing with Death- a snakes and ladders game designed to showcase both positive and negative behaviours which help or hinder resistance.

The Amnesty, run by the Unit for the first time last year was adopted by the Centre of Pharmacy Postgraduate Education and run through a number of pharmacies nationally.  The Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust also supported the initiative with its Lloyds outpatient pharmacies based at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith and Hammersmith Hospital in Acton accepting unwanted or unused antibiotics from Monday 31 October until Friday 2 December.

The College Amnesty saw a range of antibiotics surrendered including Amoxicillin, Cefradine, Chloramphenicol, Penicillin, Flucloxacillin and Erythrinmycin.  Mark Gilchrist, consultant pharmacist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust said:  “Antibiotics are a precious resource, the effectiveness of which is under threat from increasing bacterial resistance, creating one of the most significant threats to patient safety in Europe. By handing in unused or out of date antibiotics we can all help to stop them being used inappropriately and slow down the development of antibiotic resistance.”

In addition to antibiotics handed in, 267 members of the College body became Antibiotic Guardians, making one of a number of possible pledges, all designed to slow the spread of resistance.   All names were entered into a prize draw for £100 of Amazon vouchers and the winner will be announced next week.

Other local activities to mark World Antibiotic Awareness Week included a number of blog posts from the Imperial College Healthcare Trust and videos about resistance.  HPRU researchers Nichola Naylor and Hannah Lishman, will also be supporting a Royal Veterinary College Global Health Society event to mark World Antibiotic Awareness Week and European Antibiotic Awareness Day on 22 November 2016, by speaking at "AMR: stop the resistance"