Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the potential impact of allowing patients the right to request an urgent second opinion from other clinicians on the number of sepsis-related mortalities there would have been in the last five years.

The Department is actively considering introducing the right to request an urgent second opinion from other clinicians for patients and their families. As part of this process, the Department will explore available evidence on the extent to which this could improve patient safety, including the potential impact on sepsis-related mortality.

The Department works closely with NHS England and other partners in the health system to support healthcare professionals to detect and treat sepsis. Over recent years, the National Health Service has become much better at spotting and treating sepsis quickly, including through use of the National Early Warning Score and Paediatric Early Warning Score, which support clinicians to identify and respond to patients at risk of acute deterioration and with suspected sepsis.