GPs are to get new guidelines for spotting the symptoms of sepsis, after a Health Ombudsman report found significant failures in treatment of the condition, the BBC reports.
NICE will now generate new guidelines on sepsis, a condition where the body’s immune system overreacts to infection, and which kills 37,000 patients a year and accounts for 100,000 hospital admissions.
Health Ombudsman Julie Mellor said: ‘We know it is not easy to spot the early signs of sepsis, but if we learn from these complaints and work to improve diagnosis and provide rapid treatment, then lives can be saved.’
The BBC also covers a report by the Future Hospital Commission, set up by the Royal College of Physicians, which calls for an end to NHS patients being repeatedly moved around the same hospital to be treated for different conditions.
The report also recommends an end to the notion of hospitals formally discharging patients, and calls for much closer working with teams in the community.
Meanwhile, another study has found that hospital mortality rates are higher in England than in the US.
Last year, patients were 45% more likely to die in an English NHS hospital than in America, which came out as the best performer out of seven countries studied, according to the Independent.
