There is an urgent need to improve surgical antimicrobial stewardship (AMS), to enhance individual care and reduce population-level antimicrobial resistance, but it is a complex issue.

We aimed to conduct an ethnographic study asking what would work in practice to improve surgical antibiotic prescribing behaviour?

Adopting a socio-cultural-historical perspective, we undertook ethnographic observations of clinical practice (43.5 hours) and semistructured interviews (n=31) with surgical staff, AMS staff and patients at two English National Health Service hospitals. Interview transcripts and observational fieldnotes were analysed using the Framework Approach. Additionally, we integrated stakeholder engagement throughout to ensure the findings were meaningful.

Our analysis of all fieldnotes (based on 43.5 hours of observation) and interview transcripts (n=31 from interviews with 31 different participants) identified that, while surgical staff were aware of antimicrobial resistance, they seldom considered AMS urgent or important in the acute setting where lack of time and the desire to mitigate perceived risk often prevailed. Other surgical issues were perceived to dominate senior decision-makers’ focus, thus perpetuating the status quo. Furthermore, attention to AMS was not always prioritised at the organisational level or by resource-limited AMS teams. Consequently, there was an absence of relationships and tools that foreground AMS. Electronic prescribing systems frequently hindered antimicrobial review and exacerbated patterns of siloed inter-disciplinary working, and feedback on antimicrobial prescribing and patient outcomes was largely absent. To improve AMS, surgical teams wanted sustainable improvements which effectively account for the hierarchical relationships, division of labour, rapid workflow and high staff turnover. Infection experts should better integrate into surgical teams to build relationships and trust, and to proactively contribute to patient care.

We offer data-driven, theoretically informed strategies to support change. Contextually appropriate improvements that address the status and visibility of AMS in surgery will be key. Further research is needed to assess the impact and sustainability of the suggested approaches.