Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patients with urinary tract infections went on to contract sepsis in each of the last five years.

This information is not collected centrally.

We have made significant progress since our focus on sepsis increased in January 2015. The Commissioning for Quality and Innovation Scheme for sepsis incentivises providers to improve identification and timely treatment of sepsis – since the scheme was launched in 2015, we estimate more than 998 lives have been saved.

A new national action plan (for 2017/18) was published on 13 September to update the action plan originally launched in October 2015. It will include embedding safety netting with all healthcare professionals assessing patients with infections, supporting a range of education and training resources developed by Health Education England and further work on improving standards and reporting.

The new ambition to halve healthcare associated Gram-negative bloodstream infections (BSIs) by 2020, arising from our response to Lord O’Neill’s recommendations in relation to Antimicrobial Resistance, also contribute to reductions in sepsis as patients with Gram-negative BSIs may well go on to develop sepsis. This work is led by NHS Improvement and is focusing in 2017/18 on reducing E. coli BSIs – almost half of these arise from urinary tract infections.