Sepsis: National Register

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, the NHS takes this issue very seriously. NHS England and clinicians are working together very closely to make sure that we have good, clear datasets to enable us to diagnose this illness at a very early stage. Where good work is being done, we are looking at that very carefully.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, sepsis does not respect age; it is our biggest killer, killing more people than breast, bowel and prostate cancer combined. A national register for sepsis could save thousands of lives and reduce the economic burden by £2.8 billion through improving access to healthcare and basic care for sepsis. To collect the necessary data, however, the public need to be brought alongside. What stage have the Government have reached in their conversation about a register with clinicians, patients and the third sector?

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, there is a clear need for better data collection on sepsis, but a registry uses retrospective data collection. Through the Government’s new national action plan on AMR, we will go beyond this and develop real-time patient data collection through data linkage. We will be working on this very closely.