Sepsis

(asked on 7th September 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to help ensure that opportunities for diagnosis and intervention in sepsis are detected early.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 17th September 2018

We have made significant progress in improving clinical recognition, and diagnosis and timely treatment of sepsis since publication of the first Cross-System Sepsis Action Plan in 2015. Achievements include National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance and a national Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) measure for sepsis which is now one of the best performing CQUINs.

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

These include:

- The revised National Early Warning Score (NEWS2), a tool that helps to identify deteriorating patients, including those at risk from sepsis, will be rolled out across all acute and ambulance trusts by the end of March 2019. Following this, work will continue to embed NEWS2 within trusts;

- Publication of the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Improvement and Assessment Framework results from 2017/18 on the ‘My NHS’ website. The Framework shows how CCGs have been assessed for their approach to sepsis and encourages them to take further action to either sustain or improve their assessment rating; and

- Continuing to ensure that NHS Choices is up to date with relevant information to help patients and their families to spot the signs of sepsis and offer advice on steps to take.

Reticulating Splines