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Charity launches patient video by Mary at Parliament event organised by Pfizer UK

Alison Staples ANTRUK announcements, Patient stories

We were very pleased to both participate and present at a Parliament meeting organised by Pfizer UK. Attendees were drawn from the Houses of Commons and Lords as well as senior members of the Civil Service. The event was hosted by Lord Bethell, UK Minister for Innovation. It was to brief participants about the challenge that drug-resistant infections pose globally, national, regionally and locally. You can view the event programme can be found HERE.

The event provided a launchpad for a moving patient video by Mary produced by the charity to highlight that drug-resistant infections affect people and are not simply statistics. The patient video set the scene for the whole event and was well received by both the panel and participants.

Of particular interest to the charity was the presentation by Dr Bob Philips. Dr Philips is the Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Oncology at Leeds Children’s Hospital. He talked about the impact of infections in children being treated for acute lymphocytic leukaemia and the importance of effective antibiotics. Sadly when children die who have leukaemia it can be from a secondary bacterial infection causing sepsis. Patients with low immunity are particularly prone to infections. That is why it is so important that we keep our antibiotics working.

During the presentation I described discussed the success of a recent antibiotic stewardship programme. The programme was instigated by community pharmacist Mike Maguire in the North East of England. Mike’s pilot study showed that with effective triaging of patients between the local GP surgery and their community pharmacy it was possible to reduce antibiotic prescribing dramatically. I proposed to the Minister and MPs present that a large roll out of this trial needs to be undertaken nationally.

Mary’s Story