Sepsis

(asked on 22nd November 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of recent measures to (a) raise awareness of sepsis and (b) improve the diagnosis of that condition.


Answered by
Philip Dunne Portrait
Philip Dunne
This question was answered on 30th November 2017

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.

The effectiveness of these measures is currently assessed through the NHS England Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) scheme which also incentives acute providers to improve the identification and timely treatment of sepsis. The data shows that the measures are already delivering change:

- Emergency Department assessment has increased from 52% to 87% since this part of the CQUIN started in April 2015 and timely treatment increased from 49% to 72% in the same period; and

- In-patient assessment for sepsis increased from 62% to 78% and timely treatment has increased from 58% to 76% for these patients since this part of the CQUIN started in April 2016.

An evaluation is currently underway on the best way to improve measurement of sepsis cases and outcomes.

In 2016, Public Health England launched a national sepsis campaign in partnership with the UK Sepsis Trust. The effectiveness of the campaign was assessed by independent market research by online interviews before and after the activity with the target audience to see how awareness and knowledge had changed. This research shows that awareness among parents rose from the baseline figure of 75% to 83%. In addition, following the campaign, parents who reported knowing a fair amount or a great deal about sepsis increased from 38% to 61% and 75% could name at least one of the key symptoms of sepsis and 57% could name two.

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