In 2019 the UK published its 20-year vision for antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This set the ambitious goal of ensuring AMR will be controlled and contained by 2040. To deliver on this vision, the government committed to producing a series of 5-year national action plans (NAP). These will provide sustained and ongoing progress towards achieving the vision’s ambitions for change.
The first 5-year national action plan for antimicrobial resistance, ‘Tackling antimicrobial resistance 2019 to 2024’, was an important step towards achieving this vision. The work carried out across government led to progressive action towards reducing the negative impact of AMR in the UK and globally. The focus of this NAP was on 3 key ways of tackling AMR:
- investing in innovation, supply and access
2. reducing the need for, and unintentional exposure to, antimicrobials
3. optimising the use of antimicrobials
Resulting from this focus was the development of 133 commitments with the intent to reduce the burden of infection, optimise antimicrobial use, and invest in innovation and research across the UK.
To understand how the action plans were addressed nationally, it was necessary to record the breadth and scope of relevant activities. Therefore, it was identified that there was a need for a project aimed to determine activities relating to AMR research associated with Scotland that had taken place in the past five years, and to relate them to the UK National Action Plan (2019-2024). It generated a register of activities: the Scottish One Health AMR register (SOHAR).The commitments which formed the baseline of the initial version of SOHAR, also provided a foundation for how the register could be further developed in later versions.