Charity meets with Government Department of Health minister Jane Ellison MP and features in Westminster Hall debate

Alison Staples Uncategorised Leave a Comment

Organised by Kevin Hollinrake MP for Thirsk and Malton, Antibiotic Research UK met with Jane Ellison MP, Minister for Public Health. ANTRUK was represented by Ashley Burgess (Chair), Professor Colin Garner (Chief Executive) and Dr David Brown (Chair of the charity’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee). The purpose of the meeting was to highlight the charity’s mission of a) developing new antibiotic therapies with the first coming on-stream in the early 2020’s b) providing educational support to the public and professionals about antibiotic resistance and c) supporting patients with antibiotic resistant infections. Besides the Minister, there were a number of civil service advisors from Public Health England (PHE) and the Department of Health. The charity was requesting the Minister to find funds to support its antibiotic drug development programme on Antibiotic Resistance Breakers as well as entering into a discussion with PHE to use heat maps as a means of monitoring GP antibiotic prescribing in more or less real time. The Minister was very supportive of the charity’s goals and asked the question of her advisors as to whether or not ANTRUK might be directly funded. She cited some examples she was aware of where medical research charities had been funded by Government. She also stated that until the final report from the O’Neill AMR Review was published she would hold back on any positive action until she saw what the Review had to say. Subsequent to the meeting a number of contacts have been made with the Deputy Chief Medical Officer and the MRC Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme through Professor Tom Walley.

On Tuesday 26 April 2016, Julian Sturdy MP for York Outer introduced a Westminster Hall debate on
‘Incentivising research and development of new antibiotics’ in which he highlighted the charity’s role in tackling the problem of antibiotic resistance. George Freeman, MP, Minister for Life Sciences responded on behalf of the Government. A transcript of the debate can be found in Hansard. The Minister promised that once the O’Neill review was published that he would meet with ANTRUK and Julian Sturdy to discuss funding possibilities.

If all this activity at Westminster was not enough, Kevin Hollinrake MP met with the Prime Minister David Cameron to highlight the activities of ANTRUK. The PM said that he recognised how grave a problem antibiotic resistance was and he would write personally to the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientist to arrange meetings with ANTRUK.