Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what initiatives are being implemented in schools and universities to educate both healthcare professionals and the general public about the dangers of antimicrobial resistance.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) works with partners to provide the evidence base and technical expertise to support best practice in infection prevention and control in health and care and settings, such as schools and prisons.

For schools, the UKHSA’s e-Bug programme contributes to efforts to reduce infection, and strengthen stewardship, by providing free educational resources. Further information is available on the e-Bug website, in an online only format.

For health students, the UKHSA has updated the Antimicrobial prescribing and stewardship competency framework. The UKHSA also works with the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy’s Keep Antibiotics Working resource group and the National Antimicrobial Pharmacists Education Group, to make educational material available for medical, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy students. Further information is available on the Royal College of General Practitioners’ website, in an online only format.

The UKHSA coordinates the national planning group which drives the direction of the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW), and has updated resources on the GOV.UK website, which include a toolkit to support local WAAW and European Antibiotic Awareness Day campaigns. For professional audiences, the UKHSA produces the TARGET Antibiotics Toolkit, hosted on Royal College of General Practitioners’ website. Further information is available on the toolkit at the Royal College of General Practitioners’ website, in an online only format.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government in what ways they are collaborating with international partners to tackle antimicrobial resistance globally, and what role the UK is playing to shape global policies to address this issue.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The United Kingdom champions global action on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and played a lead role in the shaping and adoption of the political declaration on AMR at the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The declaration secured commitments on establishing an independent science panel and improved global access to antibiotics. Global governance will be crucial to implementing the commitments, and the UK is committed to working with multilateral fora, such as the G7 and G20, to push for continued momentum on delivering the High-Level Meeting’s commitments and driving ambitious policies that improve access to effective antimicrobials.

In addition, the £210 million Fleming Fund is the largest single investment in global AMR surveillance. This programme partners with governments from Low- and Middle-Income Countries, UN agencies, and key academic institutions from around the world to strengthen surveillance systems and use data to tackle AMR’s deadly impact in countries across Africa and Asia. The £145 million Global AMR Innovation Fund funds innovative products, like therapeutics, preventatives, and diagnostics, to prevent and mitigate AMR, working closely with Product Development Partnerships such as the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership, and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention attended the fourth Global High-Level Ministerial Conference on AMR in Jeddah, between 15 and 16 November. Together with other global leaders, the UK adopted the Jeddah Commitments, a framework for global action to combat AMR through a One Health approach.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what specific funding has been allocated in 2024–25 for research and development of new antibiotics and alternative therapies to combat antimicrobial resistance; and how this compares to funding allocated over the previous five years.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

To date, in 2024/25, the Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), has allocated over £1.2 million for research and development of new antibiotics and alternative therapies. Further research in this area may still be funded this financial year. This compares to a total of £19.5 million of funding allocated to this area of research over the previous five-year period.

The NIHR has also recently announced a further £11 million of funding over five years, for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) research, through a new NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU), focused on healthcare associated infections and AMR research. The new HPRU will launch in April 2025.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how they are enhancing surveillance systems for tracking antimicrobial resistance in the UK; and what measures they are taking to share this data with healthcare providers and the public.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The UK Health Security Agency publishes monthly data tables and quarterly and annual epidemiological commentaries on Gram-negative bacteraemia, Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Meticillin-Sensitive Staphylococcus aureus

and Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infections in England using mandatory surveillance systems.

Data on infections and antimicrobial resistance are also published in the English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance (ESPAUR) annual report. The latest ESPAUR annual report for 2023 to 2024 was published on 14 November 2024.

A Four Nations Human Surveillance Group also meets regularly, and work is ongoing to interpret surveillance data consistently across the four nations.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made on the implementation of the five-year national action plan on antimicrobial resistance (AMR); and what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of their strategies to mitigate AMR through AMR funding and research.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department, through the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR), commissioned an evaluation of the first anti-microbial resistance (AMR) national action plan (NAP), Tackling anti-microbial resistance 2019-2024. Interim findings from the evaluation were published in September 2024 and a summary report will be published when available. The research is being undertaken by the NIHR Policy Innovation and Evaluation Policy Research Unit and builds on a similar evaluation of the 2013-18 AMR Strategy.

The Department is also planning an evaluation of the new NAP, covering the period 2024 to 2029, which will aim to identify opportunities for improvement of implementation on AMR policy, provide robust evidence of the effectiveness of the 2024-29 NAP, and inform future AMR policy development and implementation.

The governance structure for the 2024 to 2029 UK AMR NAP monitors delivery of the NAP’s commitments and targets and manages programme risks. Delivery organisations are required to provide programme assurance updates biannually to ensure delivery is kept on track and that progress is being made. This data will also be used to produce an annual report that will provide an in-depth update on the progress made towards programme delivery.