009 Global Health Pharmacist: Claire Brandish

<p>Claire is an experienced, inspiring, strong-minded, yet very modest antimicrobial pharmacist.&nbsp;She started her career with an interest in&nbsp;care of the elderly,&nbsp;an area of pharmacy that she wasn't expecting to love as much as she did. The idea of making clinical interventions and de-prescribing to prevent falls, for example, intrigued her. She highlights the fact that elderly patients take so many medications and this is a prime area for pharmacists to make a difference in patient care.</p> <p>Her first experience of working in infectious diseases was at the&nbsp;Queen Elizabeth Hospital for a 6 month rotation in Clinical Governance and Risk combined with Antimicrobials.&nbsp;This role was a great combination as antimicrobial prescribing is a constant battle between weighing up risks vs&nbsp;taking the medication and the governance aspect of this role is also very similar. This role allowed Claire to&nbsp;experience directorate level work&nbsp;in&nbsp;audits, quality assurance, writing guidelines, and implementing NPSA alerts.</p> <p>She fell in love with infectious diseases in this job and hasn't looked back! She loves working&nbsp;alongside consultants and&nbsp;going on ward rounds, making positive changes to prescribing, ensuring patients aren't having unnecessary antibiotics to begin with, IV to oral switches etc.&nbsp;The role involves a lot of governance too - guideline writing and policy development, auditing, and service improvement - elements of the job that Claire&nbsp;thoroughly enjoys!</p> <p>In November 2018 whilst working at Buckinghamshire NHS Trust, there was a call for NHS staff to support proposals to tackle Antimicrobial Resistance in commonwealth countries in Africa.&nbsp;The Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) scheme has supported 12 health partnerships across Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia to fight AMR.&nbsp;The CwPAMs projects, started in February 2019, have been supported by the Commonwealth Pharmacy Association (<a href="https://commonwealth