Welcome to VetTeamAMR Education – Companion Animal and Equine

RCVS Knowledge
Welcome to the Vet Team AMR Education platform, a hub for learning materials and resources covering antimicrobial resistance and stewardship for companion animal and equine veterinary teams.

Tim Nuttall
Hi everyone, and welcome to this free, online education platform on antimicrobial resistance and stewardship. It’s brought to you by RCVS Knowledge and funded by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate.
I’m Tim Nuttall, the companion animal lead for this project, where I’m supported by Angie Rayner, David Singleton and the RCVS Knowledge team. I’m Head of Veterinary Dermatology at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies in Edinburgh. I’ve a lot of experience of
antimicrobial resistance and stewardship through clinical work, research, teaching and scientific committees. I am a member of the Scottish Veterinary Antimicrobial Prescribing and Scottish Veterinary Antimicrobial Resistance Groups, and I’m currently chair of the
Scottish One Health Antimicrobial Use and Antimicrobial Resistance Report oversight and advisory committee.

Prior to leading on this project, I worked with RCVS Knowledge to highlight antimicrobial resistance concerns in veterinary practice with their Infection Control Boxset and Farm Vet Champions. Alongside other initiatives, these have had a dramatic effect on cutting
antimicrobial use in farm animals, especially use of the highest priority critically important antimicrobials (HP-CIAs), such as fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins. Unfortunately, progress in companion animal and equine practice hasn’t gone so well.

Historically, we were guilty of using too many antimicrobials – often speculatively or ‘just in case’. One paper showed that more than 50% of consultations for pruritic dogs resulted in a prescription for a systemic antimicrobial, which was often broad spectrum. Remember that seeing itchy dogs is my day job, and I use nothing like that amount. We’re moving in the right direction, but use of amoxicillin-clavulanate, fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins remains stubbornly high.

The creation of this education platform will be vitally important in supporting vets and nurses in companion animal and equine practice to replace, refine and reduce antibiotic use. Before we go into more detail, I’d like to introduce you to my equine co-lead, Tim Mair.

Tim Mair
Thanks Tim. Hello everyone. My name is Tim Mair and I work at the Bell Equine Veterinary Clinic in Kent. I’m also Equine Veterinary Director of the CVS Group. I have interests in equine internal medicine, equine soft tissue surgery and diagnostic imaging. I’m a past president of the British Equine Veterinary Association and am editor of BEVA’s journal, Equine Veterinary Education (EVE).
I got interested in the issue of antimicrobial resistance when we started to encounter some cases of surgical site infections by multi-resistant bacteria in our hospital, and then read the 2016 report by Jim O’Neill which was commissioned by the then Prime Minister David Cameron, and which quoted some staggering statistics about the current and future consequences of evolving AMR, with an estimated 10 million human deaths every year by the year 2050.

Before this project, I’ve worked with RCVS Knowledge to highlight the importance of evidence-based veterinary medicine and Quality Improvement, as well as sitting on the advisory board for the National Audit for Post-operative Outcomes. I am also a previous RCVS Knowledge trustee. Some of the key recommendations of the Jim O’Neill report were to educate people and raise awareness about the importance of antimicrobial resistance, in addition to auditing antimicrobial use and monitoring resistance patterns. I’ve been
promoting these things through BEVA and EVE, and am excited about working with RCVS Knowledge to provide equine practitioners with further tools to help them achieve these goals.

Tim, what would you say veterinary teams can expect from these learning materials?

Tim Nuttall
Working with RCVS Knowledge, we’ve put together an extensive library of material targeting responsible antimicrobial use in companion animals and horses. There’s a range of resources in different formats and styles to suit everyone working with these animals. These include podcasts, written material, roundtable discussions and case examples. Every topic is designed to be short, informative and, hopefully, useful. Vets, nurses and others can pick and choose the topics most relevant to them and their work. We cover antimicrobial resistance, categorisation of antibiotics, communication with clients and colleagues, diagnostics, including in-house cytology, cultures and antimicrobial sensitivity tests, and more.

Tim Mair
And with that, we’ve also taken a look more closely at specific clinical conditions in dogs, cats, horses, small furries and exotics.

Tim Nuttall
As you work your way through the resources, please do keep in touch with us. We want to hear how you’re getting on. We want to learn from you and with you. Together we can make a difference, and we’re really excited that you’re here with us.

RCVS Knowledge
For further resources, practice tools and information, please visit the AMR hub on our website at rcvsknowledge.org.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Feel free to adapt and share this document with acknowledgment to RCVS Knowledge. This information is provided for use for educational purposes. We do not warrant that information we provide will meet animal health or medical requirements.