National early-warning system for children with sepsis is essential

Sepsis warning symptoms and sepsis management will be the subject of a debate today at the Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) annual Congress in Liverpool where nurses will call for a nationwide rollout of a new system to enable signs of deterioration in any patient’s condition to be identified and acted upon quickly.  If healthcare staff and the public are better educated on the signs of sepsis tens of thousands of lives lost each year could be saved. According to the UK Sepsis Trust between 1,000 and 4,000 under-fives die of sepsis every year in the UK. Yet there is not currently a universal, nationally validated system