NHS hospitals are ‘taking too long’ to treat suspected sepsis

NHS patients’ lives may be put at risks because hospitals are taking too long to give antibiotics for suspected sepsis.

As many as one in four people thought to have the life-threatening illness are having to wait more than an hour before being treated to prevent it.

The health service says it’s crucial to take no more than an hour to give life-saving medication to anyone who may have sepsis, which can cause organ failure.

But an investigation has found some hospitals leave more than half their patients waiting longer than this.

Experts at dedicated charity the UK Sepsis Trust called the figures ‘concerning’.

Sepsis is an extremely deadly overreaction of the immune system which causes fever, shivering, a fast heartbeat and erratic breathing.

Around 250,000 people in the UK are thought to develop the illness – which is not an infection – every year, and around 55,000 of them die.

It can kill quickly and is always a medical emergency. People who are already ill or infected with something else are the most likely to develop sepsis.

A spokesman for the UK Sepsis Trust, Dr Ron Daniels, told the BBC treating people within an hour was ‘essential to increase the chances of surviving’.

Testing for sepsis can be slow because it’s not caused by a specific bacteria or virus.

To overcome this the NHS prioritises hooking up patients who might have the condition to intravenous antibiotics as a precaution.

Not doing so raises the risk of septic shock which causes vomiting, dizziness, confusion, severe pain and breathlessness.

This can drop someone into a coma and eventually kill them – sometimes this takes just a matter of hours.

But the BBC’s investigation found only 75 per cent of NHS patients with suspected sepsis got medicine within an hour in January, February and March.

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Simon Smith, 51, died last year after contracting sepsis which severely damaged his liver.

He had been admitted to A&E in Dudley in the West Midlands because of a pain in his leg, his wife Hayley told the BBC.

He had hallmark symptoms of sepsis, including a high temperature and rapid heart rate, but medics didn’t give him antibiotics for six days – he survived another four months but ultimately died of the illness.

Mr Smith went to hospital complaining of pain in his leg but developed a high temperature and fast heartbeat – telltale symptoms of sepsis

Mr Smith’s widow, Hayley, said she was ‘angry’ about the delay to giving her husband antibiotics and claims she saw notes saying he should have had them sooner

Mrs Smith, his widow, said: ‘I am just so angry about the delay giving him antibiotics. That could have made all the difference. He had all the signs.

‘I’ve seen notes acknowledging he should definitely have had them on day two – but it didn’t happen.’

The couple’s local health board, the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, told the BBC it had offered its condolences to the family but could not comment ahead of an inquest. 

In Wales this was 71 per cent for A&E patients and 83 per cent for inpatients, while there were no figures for Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Hospitals have only had to report data on spotting and treating sepsis for the past three years so the NHS can crack down on the deadly condition slipping through medics’ fingers.

NHS England said hospitals are getting better at it, and in early 2017 only about 60 per cent of people got treated within an hour.

Dr Daniels added: ‘There is no reason why it should take longer.’

Spokeswoman Celia Clark told the BBC: ‘It’s important not to automatically give antibiotics to everyone, instead we want to identify the sickest patients and get them assessed and then quickly give them antibiotics.’