Dr Melanie Sepsis Could You Spot This Emergency?

Blood poisoning can be fatal unless treated in time

Sepsis (blood poisoning or septicaemia) develops when our bodies are overwhelmed by infection. It’s five times more fatal than a heart attack or stroke, and kills around 44,000 people of all ages annually in the UK – one death every 14 minutes, and more than a quarter of them are children. But 10,000 lives could be saved according to the Sepsis Trust. The charity says severe sepsis strikes more than 150,000 of us, costing the NHS £2.5 billion each year, but that treatment using the Sepsis Six guidelines (see box, right) saves resources as well as lives, by cutting time spent in hospital, and long-term disability. What is sepsis? Our immune systems successfully fight off most of the bacteria that attack our bodies. If bacteria do gain access, making us…

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Woman's Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 09-feb-16

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