In this episode, Martin talks to Dr Diane Ashiru-Oredope and colleagues at the UK Health Security Agency about the 2025 ESPAUR report, focusing on what the latest data mean for clinicians, infection prevention teams, and health system leaders. We explore what the latest data reveal about antimicrobial resistance and prescribing trends in England, including changes in resistance patterns among major bacterial pathogens and what this means for patient safety and clinical outcomes.

We discuss what’s improving, where challenges remain, and how infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship teams can use national surveillance data to drive meaningful local action.

You can download the report in it's entirety here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6936ac34b612700b2cb73607/ESPAUR-report-2024-to-2025.pdf

There is also a supplement and summary in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy which can be accessed here: https://academic.oup.com/jacamr/issue/8/Supplement_2

The TARGET antibiotics toolkit hub is abailable here: https://elearning.rcgp.org.uk/course/view.php?id=553

e-Bug is available here: https://www.e-bug.eu/

This is our traditional end of year Christmas special. In this episode we consider highlights from year and have a bit of fun - including a stakeout in London.

We talk about our views on the most significant systematic review, our favourite presentation/poster, RCTs would like to see and predictions for 2026.

In this episode, Martin talks to Dr Jon Otter, Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, UK. We examine two complementary pieces of work that provide further insight into Candidozyma auris transmission in acute hospitals. The first demonstrates, for the first time in the UK, that ward-level wastewater reliably mirrors patient colonisation and can reveal genetically related outbreak strains using culture and PCR. The second, a case–control study, identifies clinical and environmental risk factors that shape colonisation, highlighting the significance of shared patient equipment.

The paper can be found here: Davidson HC, Griffin AE, Symes L, Laing KG, Witney AA, Gould K, et al. Detection of Candidozyma (formerly Candida) auris from ward wastewater during an outbreak using culture and molecular methods. J Hosp Infect 2025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2025.10.024

A copy of the poster can be downloaded here