October and November have been a season of numerous conferences in emergency medicine in the UK, and internationally. I had the chance to attend the Sepsis Unplugged conference held in Brighton by the UK Sepsis Trust, aiming for speedy recognition and treatment of sepsis to reduce mortality. A killer of 44000 people per year in the UK, sepsis is still largely unknown to the wider population. The condition recently surfaced in the news however, after a young mother-of-two died of sepsis following a “minor scrape on her hands while gardening”.
From the many talks and interactive sessions at the conference, what consistently came across was the variety of healthcare professionals involved in shaping paramedicine. Patients' stories of their battle with sepsis made the event even more insightful. One such story of sepsis patient Tom Ray was also released as a film called ‘Starfish’ this year – a welcome human touch to the statistics presented by healthcare professionals.
Many found it helpful to know of care pathways elsewhere in the country; many more regarded the patients' feedback as the crux of improving care in sepsis. There were accounts of sepsis being misdiagnosed or even dismissed as a bad infection. Although patients felt that there was more to it than that, they couldn't describe the severity of their sickness to the doctors. Some families at the conference said that they only heard the word sepsis for the first time after losing a loved one to it. These stories suggest that, in addition to quick diagnosis and treatment of sepsis, it is important for the general public to be aware of the condition. It is necessary for the patient or their family to question the doctors: to ‘think sepsis’; to be insistent if they think that their illness feels worse than what the diagnosis indicates.
This month's comment piece by Tim Nutbeam and Ron Daniels on p.530 highlights where sepsis currently stands and what needs to be done to further our progress with it.
Patient knowledge and awareness of diseases is known to aid optimum outcome. Paramedics often encounter patients in a state where they are unable to describe their condition. In the interest of quick action, it becomes invaluable for the population and healthcare professionals alike, to have increased awareness about the major causes of death in the country. Doctors, nurses, ambulance staff, primary care professionals, telephone-triage services and charity workers – each unit is an important one in the jigsaw of paramedicine. It is a field where professionals with different qualifications and training work together to better patient outcome. As such, interaction and knowledge sharing is crucial in order to strengthen the abilities of healthcare services. But the public at large is also a link in this chain.
The 1980s saw large-scale campaigns throughout the World to raise awareness about HIV, a disease not commonly acknowledged at the time. It is now a well-known condition among the general population, which helps in preventing and managing it. Similar efforts in different therapy areas are needed continually to reduce morbidity and mortality rates of prevalent conditions. Why not start with sepsis?