RAPID-AMS: RAndomised Platform for Integrated Decision support for Anti-Microbial Stewardship

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a serious illness that leads to around 83,000 hospital admissions and 29,000 deaths each year in the UK. There are clear guidelines for treating mild to moderate cases using standard antibiotics, but hospitals only follow these recommendations about 58% of the time. Instead, stronger "extended-spectrum" antibiotics are often used when they aren't needed. This adds to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance — where infections become harder to treat.

In 2024, the UK recorded over 66,000 antibiotic-resistant infections and 2,640 related deaths. These infections hit some groups harder than others, especially people in deprived areas, ethnic minorities, children, and older adults.

Our project, RAPID-AMS, aims to tackle this issue by using hospital data and digital tools to improve how antibiotics are prescribed. We will:

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1. Test different ways of prescribing antibiotics to find what works best for individual patients.

2. Use digital trials to make sure all groups in society are included in research.

3. Build a learning system that helps doctors make better antibiotic choices based on real-time data.

Why this matters to patients:
Using the right antibiotic can save lives and avoid side effects. Using the wrong one increases the risk of complications and treatment failure.

Why this matters to the NHS:
Antibiotic resistance already costs the NHS around £180 million each year due to longer hospital stays, surgery delays, and ward closures.

Why this matters for public health:
Some communities are underrepresented in clinical trials, which means we don’t always know what treatments work best for them. Our approach uses electronic health records to make research more inclusive.

We’ve already shown that this kind of digital research can be done in hospitals. Now, we want to expand it across multiple sites and show that it can improve antibiotic use in a cost-effective and sustainable way.

Lead Investigators