Pharmacy teams have a key role in helping to increase the public’s awareness of the importance of using antibiotics only when they are really needed.

The Keep Antibiotics Working national campaign, which is designed to support healthcare professionals by reducing patients’ expectations for antibiotics, has a range of resources that pharmacy teams can use locally.

The campaign features advertising on TV, radio, digital and social media, in addition to PR from October to December each year. The resources including dedicated pharmacy posters and leaflets are also available to download from Public Health England’s Campaign Resource Centre.

The Antibiotic Guardian campaign is a behaviour change initiative to benefit human and animal health. It provides a range of actions (in the form of pledges on antibioticguardian.com) that healthcare professionals, health students and members of the public including pet owners can individually contribute to tackling AMR. There are now over 70,000 pledges from more than 100 countries across the world.

The impact and evaluation study of the Antibiotic Guardian campaign demonstrated that it increased commitment to tackling AMR in both healthcare professionals and members of the public, increased self-reported knowledge and changed self-reported behaviour, particularly among people with prior AMR awareness.