Sepsis: National Register

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, this is a very important area of work. The UK Sepsis Trust has done incredible work to raise awareness of sepsis and ensure that we continue to focus on improving outcomes for patients. NHS England is co-ordinating work across the health system, including working with the UK Sepsis Trust. Of course, we are ensuring that sufficient resources are made available to tackle this devastating illness. The noble Lord has my reassurance on that.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

I declare an interest as someone who luckily recovered from a total-body sepsis and organ failure. Although more attention is now being given to this devastating illness, thanks to the UK Sepsis Trust among others, I understand that in its early stages, it is very difficult to diagnose. What kind of training and awareness-raising is being given to GPs and other primary care staff to enable them to identify it at an early stage?

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, that is a very good question. We are working very closely with clinicians to ensure that they have the tools to diagnose this very serious condition. We do not yet have good data on all the long-term effects of sepsis, but we have developed data analysis tools that look at all people admitted to hospital with infections, or sepsis, to see the impact of actions over a long time. Of course, we are training junior doctors and others to recognise sepsis in the early stages of the illness, as people are admitted to accident and emergency, and we have set up data collection for serious incidences of sepsis.