Sepsis and pre-hospital care: where are we now?
The last few years have been busy when it comes to sepsis. We have seen the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD), new definitions from the Sepsis-3 group, and a set of guidelines from the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Despite all this work, sepsis remains difficult to describe and diagnose. Though showing a trend in the right direction, the response to critical therapies is still not as rapid as we would like it to be for our loved ones.
At least 150 000 patients in the UK are affected by sepsis every year. At the current rate, it is predicted that this number will at least double every 10 years. Sepsis has high mortality rates (up to 40%); it represents a huge burden to the NHS, consuming a significant proportion of intensive care bed-days, and costs an estimated £2.5 billion per annum. We would all agree, that we can and should do better – pre-hospital (PH) practitioners have a huge amount to contribute to decreasing the mortality and morbidity burden from sepsis, and we are likely to see this realised over the next few years.
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