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 Published: 05 Oct 2020 | Last Updated: 05 Oct 2020 09:39:13

Brodbelt, O’Neill DG, D, Mateus A, Kennedy N, Church D (2021-2023) . Improved Stewardship to Protect Veterinary Antimicrobial Usage. PetPlan Charitable Trust, Two year postdoctoral researcher.

Antimicrobial resistance is increasingly reported in veterinary practice and is linked to inappropriate use of antimicrobials (AM). It is therefore essential that veterinarians use the right type of AM, the correct dose, at the right time – a concept known as AM stewardship. Previous work has highlighted that AM groups that should be reserved for serious and life threatening illness may be being used more routinely in practice. Working within the health surveillance programme, VetCompass, this project will develop current baseline benchmarking of AM usage and implement and evaluate distinct strategies for improved AM use across a large group of veterinary practices.

Dave Brodbelt says: "This is an exciting new opportunity to work closely with our veterinary colleagues in practice within VetCompass to help improve the use of some of our more important antimicrobials. We as vets need to continue to work on the careful stewardship of the antimicrobials we have to preserve their effectiveness for our patients’ health and welfare. We are particularly grateful to PetPlan Charitable Trust for funding this ground-breaking project".

Dan O’Neill says: "We are lucky to now live in an age when we have the big data to show us the evidence on ‘what’ is happening in practices across the UK. This new project will help to explain ‘why’ it is happening; and more importantly, ‘how’ to improve our daily veterinary activities".