Sepsis betrayal: Half of sufferers wait over an hour for treatment

HALF of patients with sepsis symptoms are waiting more than an hour for lifesaving treatment, a major audit has found.

Under NHS guidelines, anyone showing signs of the illness should be assessed and treated within 60 minutes of arriving at hospital.

Without rapid treatment, sepsis quickly takes hold of the body, leading to multiple organ failure and death.

But a study involving 13,000 patients found that only 44 per cent received antibiotics within an hour of arriving at A&E units.

Just 45 per cent were offered a blood test and 43 per cent given intravenous fluids within 60 minutes – to help prevent the body shutting down.

This is the largest audit into the NHS’s care for sepsis and campaigners said the findings were a serious ‘cause of concern’.

Last year the Mail launched a major End the Sepsis Scandal campaign to raise awareness of the devastating illness. It was prompted by the tragic case of one-year- old William Mead who died in December 2014 following a series of errors by doctors and staff.

Since then the NHS has overhauled its guidelines for staff and also launched a public awareness drive to improve knowledge of the symptoms.

The audit was carried out by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and included data from 196 A&E units in England. The authors studied the records of 13,129 adults who had attended A&E between January and December 2016 with possible sepsis signs. These include feeling dizzy or faint, severe breathlessness, confusion, or cold and clammy skin.

The audit found that 31 per cent of patients with these symptoms did not undergo a full set of observations including temperature, breathing rate and blood tests.

Another 35 per cent of patients were not reviewed by a consultant – which the authors warned was an ‘important factor’ affecting their care. In 82 per cent of cases, the patient’s urine output was not recorded. This is a key warning sign because it usually decreases once sepsis takes hold. The audit concluded that care on the whole is improving – but there is substantially more which can be done to save more lives.

College president Dr Taj Hassan said: ‘Sepsis continues to be a leading cause of death in patients admitted to hospital as an emergency. It is vital therefore that staff in the emergency department are able to rapidly assess, recognise, risk stratify and treat such patients with proven evidencebased therapy.’

The college has issued hospitals with a string of recommendations to improve care, including appointing a ‘sepsis lead’ – a senior doctor to oversee treatment.

They also urged staff to distribute sepsis awareness leaflets in waiting rooms to ensure patients are alert to symptoms.

Dr Ron Daniels, of the UK Sepsis Trust charity, said: ‘This highlights that the rapid delivery of the right care to patients with sepsis is still far from reliable.’

He said the recommendations to carry out checks and administer treatment within an hour ‘has been proven to save lives’, adding: ‘The fact it seems to be delivered in fewer than half of cases is a concern.

‘Until we get this right, 140 people will continue to die every day.’

An NHS England spokesman said: ‘We are pleased to see the improvement in sepsis care in emergency departments and are pleased that the RCEM are bringing to the attention of its own members their opportunities for further medical improvements in timely diagnosis and therapy.’

END THE SEPSIS SCANDAL