Research Area
Our direct in-patient and out-patient services are based at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in the new purpose-built unit in the Louisa Martindale building where we work jointly with colleagues providing services for HIV patients and sexual health. We are the NHSE regional infectious diseases service for Kent, Surrey and Sussex (KSS) and hub of the KSS post-graduate training programme in microbiology and infectious diseases.
Our Research
Our research is embedded in our practice. We aim to improve the diagnosis, prevention and management of the common infections which complicate modern health care. We aim to be a leader and active contributor to research on the NIHR Clinical Research Portfolio involving a wide range of our patients in clinical research.
Our research is collaborative. Our clinical academics are based within Global Health and Infection at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and link our research and training internationally.
We have a strong track record of multi-professional research career development involving nurses, biomedical scientists and pharmacists. We deliver a highly successful programme of NIHR academic training posts at clinical fellow, doctorial and post-doctoral clinical lecturer level.
Key Outputs
Our researchers led the Antibiotic Review Kit – hospital trial which developed a novel behaviour change intervention to reduce antibiotic overuse in hospitalised adults and evaluated it in forty acute hospitals across the NHS. As part of this research, we highlighted the fallacy of advice to complete antibiotic courses to minimise antibiotic resistance in the BMJ. Our findings were published in Lancet Infectious Diseases and the tools we developed are now in use widely in the NHS and freely available through the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.
Our researchers apply microbial whole-genome sequencing for the study of bacterial pathogenesis, transmission of infectious agents and to develop new approaches to diagnosis and infection prevention. We have helped understand the adaptation of S. aureus to healthcare environments and how to target infection prevention interventions to minimise S. aureus acquisition in healthcare.
Current Projects
Our antibiotic prescribing research currently focuses on optimising antibiotic treatment duration.
The Personalised Antibiotic Duration for Cellulitis (PAD-C) Study, funded by NIHR and led by one of our PhD students, is establishing how to track treatment response in cellulitis using clinical factors, blood tests and different approaches to thermal imaging of the skin. This will help us design approaches to guide decisions to stop or continue antibiotics ensuring best clinical outcomes for patients.
DURATION UTI is an NIHR funded clinical trial to establish optimal treatment duration for women with either cystitis or pyelonephritis. Our researchers are leading the secondary-care aspects of the trial which will begin recruitment in August 2023.
Our translational research into preventing healthcare-associated infection and AMR focuses on applying novel approaches to enhance infection prevention and control. The GENomics to OpTimising Infection PrEvention (GENOTIPE) study is an industry-funded collaboration (GENPax) evaluating the role of real-time microbial whole-genome sequencing in enhancing outbreak characterisation, allowing targeted measures to be implemented earlier to better prevent and control spread of infection. Alongside this we are developing novel infection prediction technologies and working with industry-collaborators (NEX.Q) to create bespoke decision-support platforms which, together, hold the potential to change how we deliver effective infection prevention and control in healthcare settings.
Key Local Contact Details
- Prof Martin Llewelyn, Professor of Infectious Diseases; clinical trials, optimisation of antibiotic prescribing
- Dr James Price, Senior Lecturer in Infection, Consultant in Microbiology and Infectious Disease; infection prevention, microbial genomics,
- Dr Racheol Sierra, Consultant in Microbiology and Infectious Disease, Clinical Lead for Microbiology, Antimicrobial Stewardship and Out-Patient Antibiotic Therapy for the Worthing and St Richards Hospitals Microbiology department