Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to reduce sepsis in hospital wards.

In September 2017, NHS England published the second Cross-System Sepsis Action Plan which sets out existing and new cross-system measures to support early diagnosis and timely treatment of sepsis in a range of settings, including in hospital wards.

The Action Plan also highlights existing preventative measures such as improving hand hygiene and good care of catheters to reduce infection risk and thus lower the chance of sepsis.

Through the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) scheme, NHS England is incentivising acute providers to improve the identification and timely treatment of sepsis. For in-patients this is already delivering change; in-patient assessment for sepsis increased from 62% to 78% and timely treatment has increased from 58% to 76% since this part of the CQUIN started in April 2016.

In September 2017, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published the sepsis Quality Standard which supports front line staff in implementing the 2016 NICE guideline on sepsis. Also in September, NHS England published the ‘Sepsis guidance implementation advice for adults’ which provides further practical implementation advice on the NICE guideline and includes specific guidance on recognising sepsis in hospitals.

As part of our work on reducing antimicrobial resistance, NHS Improvement is leading work on the Government’s ambition to reduce healthcare-associated Gram-negative bloodstream infections, which can progress to sepsis, in England by 50% by 2020/21.