Health: Sepsis

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right. Trusts are now incentivised to report incidences of sepsis and their performance against these quality standards. That is happening. Unfortunately there is still variation within the system. That is why the documents that came out yesterday are so important. For the first time, we have an operational definition of adult sepsis. Clearly, that is critical to making sure that it is spotted in time.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the action plan is very welcome. It seems apparent that when patients come through, particularly from A&E, they are not recognised as having sepsis. Clearly, there is an issue about health service staff not recognising the symptoms or understanding the scale of the problem with sepsis. The Minister will be aware of a 2015 report by the national confidential inquiry which criticised the way coding is designed so that, in fact, sepsis does not appear as the prime responsibility for a death. The Government have been asked to look at coding. If it is not in the action plan, will the Minister look at this?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

That is absolutely right: there was an issue with coding. The noble Lord will be pleased to hear that from April this year NHS Digital published new guidance on coding for sepsis to deliver exactly the kind of improved reporting he wants.