Sepsis claims over 37,000 lives in the UK annually – more than lung cancer, and more than breast cancer and bowel cancer combined.

Research shows that early recognition and intervention may save as many as 15,000 lives each year.

The Sepsis Six is a set of evidenced based interventions which can increase a patient’s chance of survival. Early identification and treatment can reduce mortality, especially if antibiotics are administered within the first hour.  Patents mortality increases by 8 per cent for every hour they do not receive antibiotics.

The Ambulatory Care Unit at Wishaw General Hospital is the first pilot team from the Reducing Harm Collaborative to have reliably implemented the Sepsis Six bundle, and are delivering Sepsis Six to over 90 per cent of patients.

Jane Murkin, head of patient safety and improvement, said: “This is an excellent achievement and I would like to congratulate the ambulatory care unit for their hard work.”

Clinical Lead Martin Carberry, said: “I am keen to celebrate and share the achievement that the Wishaw team has made. Pilot collaborative teams have been actively working on measuring, testing and implementing changes to achieve improvement and reliability and the 10 per cent reduction in sepsis mortality.”

The Emergency Response Centre has contributed significantly to this achievement by testing a screening process for all GP calls and subsequently alerting the team to any septic patients.

Martin added: “Patients are our Priority and working in partnership with our GP colleagues we are now in the position to give all receiving units the ‘heads up’ when it comes to sepsis, it is great to see the system working so well”

The Sepsis Six:

• Administer high flow oxygen
• Take blood cultures
• Give broad spectrum antibiotics
• Give intravenous fluid challenges
• Measure serum lactate and haemoglobin
• Measure accurate hourly urine output.