Adult Sepsis

Description

This session covers non pregnant adults and children aged 12 years and over. It is aimed at all out of hospital clinicians, GPs, Nurses, Paramedics, Community Midwives and those providing urgent or unscheduled care. It will cover the subtle ways in which sepsis may present and highlight the history, examination and the management of the patient with sepsis. This session has been uptated to reflect the changes in NEWS2 2017 and will be referred to throughout this session.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Describe various ways patients with sepsis may present and what to cover in the history

• List the structured set of observations to support clinical decision making and to help stratify risk

• Recall common pitfalls in diagnosis

• Identify which patients with sepsis are highest priority for urgent admission and know about the early management of the patient with sepsis

Sepsis is a clinical syndrome when the immune system is switched on in response to infection. This response can be overwhelming and may lead to multi-organ failure.

Sepsis with shock is life threatening as the hypotension does not respond to fluids alone. Signs and symptoms may be very non-specific and can easily be missed especially since people with sepsis may not have an obvious history of infection, and fever is not present in all cases.