Sepsis and deterioration is a huge clinical problem and 70% of sepsis cases originate in Primary Care. In the last five years we have experienced a culture shift in primary care; from seeing sepsis as an acute condition that is difficult to detect, to recognising the need to actively assess patients where infection could be causing significant illness or deterioration. The early assessment and consistent recording of physiology in the deteriorating patient is increasingly recognised as important to improve outcomes across all care settings.
While the adoption of NEWS2 criteria has enabled secondary care and ambulance services to standardise assessment and communication, there remains a lack of evidence for the best methods of assessment for primary care settings. Primary Care:24 decided to implement the use of standardised messages to communicate concerns of potential sepsis to patients, General Practice, Hospital and ambulance services. It was hoped that improving sepsis recognition pre-hospital and alerting secondary care services prior to transfer using a common language would facilitate early treatment, potentially saving many lives.
Primary Care: 24 (PC:24) delivers a range of urgent and primary care services to around 1 million people across Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens and Sefton. As a not-for-profit Social Enterprise, PC:24 works closely with people, partners and communities to deliver services that focus on quality and care.
PC:24 joined the Advancing Quality (AQ) System Wide Approach to Sepsis Collaborative Programme in September 2016, with the aim of improving pre hospital care for adult patients suspected of having sepsis following the death from sepsis of a normally fit and well patient aged 37 years.
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