Ambulance chief invited to Sepsis Parliamentary Reception

North East Ambulance Service’s Head of Clinical Care and Patient Safety will be attending a Parliamentary Reception tomorrow (Tuesday, September 13) as part of the Trust’s fight against sepsis.

Maureen Gordon is representing the organisation at the Annual Sepsis Parliamentary Reception, which is being held at the Houses of Parliament to coincide with World Sepsis Day.

Mrs Gordon, who first qualified as a nurse in 1997 and has worked in emergency care across the North East, joined North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) in 2014.

Sepsis, which is often referred to as either blood poisoning or septicaemia, is a potentially life-threatening condition triggered by an infection or injury. It causes the body's immune system to go into overdrive as it tries to fight an infection, which can reduce the blood supply to vital organs such as the brain, heart and kidneys. Without quick treatment, it can lead to multiple organ failure and death. Sepsis claims 44,000 lives annually in the U.K, and costs the NHS an estimated £2.5 billion.

Prompt recognition and early treatment is essential to reducing this and saving lives.

However it is not always easy to diagnose sepsis as the symptoms can be masked by other conditions and illnesses.

Staff at NEAS are key to this early recognition and the Trust is working with partners across the region to review and adopt national guidance to improve on our identification of patients with sepsis enabling earlier treatment and improved outcomes for our patients.

Mrs Gordon said 'We're passionate about making sure our patients receive the best care at the earliest opportunity.

“Early recognition and prompt treatment saves lives. We want to increase our early recognition of sepsis by 5%.

“We are working with our partners to review the current sepsis recognition tool, which we believe will help us identify this life-threatening, and very serious condition, much earlier.

“As well as giving us the opportunity to start treatment, the tool will help us make sure we can let our hospitals know when we are bringing a patient to hospital who we suspect of having sepsis, so they are prepared and we can transfer care seamlessly. We're all working together to make sure fewer people die from this terrible condition and more people survive sepsis.

“This reception will provide me with the opportunity to talk about what we are doing as a Trust and to share experiences with my healthcare colleagues across the UK.”