50,000 Brits a year dying from sepsis

Infection is bigger killer than cancer

Globally, it has become a bigger killer than cancer.

A shock report in the respected Lancet journal reveals the UK fared worse than all EU nations apart from Portugal.

The study found we had more cases per 100,000 of the population than Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Iran.

Experts warn infections are more likely as record numbers of NHS patients are having to be cared for in corridors.

UK sepsis rates were 116th worst out of 195 nations, compared to Romania in 129th place, Germany in 130th, Ireland in 180th and Iceland in 188th.

The analysis suggests that the horrifying infection claimed 48,000 lives here in 2017.

The Global Burden of Disease Report on sepsis estimates there were 48.9million cases in that year and 11million deaths, across 195 countries and territories.

This equates to just under a fifth of all global deaths that year. Dr Ron Daniels, chief executive of the UK Sepsis Trust, said: “This is an enormously prevalent and deadly condition that we need to take more seriously.

“With increasing stress on healthcare systems in which patients might be cared for in corridors away from the most hygienic clinical areas, then the risk of sepsis increases.

“As the NHS is increasingly under pressure to discharge patients then people first develop symptoms when they are at home. This data confirms sepsis is as common as heart attacks and more deadly than any cancer.”

Four in every five sepsis infections develop in patients outside of hospitals.

It often develops after patients have been discharged following surgery.

The study estimated there are more than double the number of deaths than previously thought, many in developing countries.

Campaigners are demanding that the NHS starts routinely recording sepsis deaths as current data on lives lost is based on estimates.