Sepsis: Delays in funding awareness campaign 'is costing lives', letter obtained by ITV News says
By Richard Pallot: ITV News Correspondent
The Health Secretary has a lot on his plate at the moment - but you could argue the threat of sepsis should be right at the top of his pile.
ITV News has seen a private letter from the UK Sepsis Trust warning Jeremy Hunt that people are dying daily, unnecessarily, due to delays in getting a public awareness campaign off the ground.
Sepsis is a clinical syndrome where the body effectively begins to shut down due to a separate severe infection somewhere in the body.
Indeed, Ron Daniels, chair of that charity, spells it out even more bluntly.
Since their last meeting with the Department of Health on February 22, another 1,200 adults and 40 children have been killed as a result of sepsis.
Approximately a third of those will have been preventable.
Two-year-old Thomas Hebbron was almost added to that list.
Last month, with a temperature of 43 degrees,and despite two trips to A&E, doctors repeatedly failed to diagnose he had sepsis.
It was only the swift actions of his mother Gemma, who saw an interview with Melissa Mead whose son died from the disease, that she recognised the symptoms.
Back she went back to the hospital. and got the right treatment - without it., Gemma says Thomas would no longer be alive.
A public awareness campaign would cost roughly £2,000,000 - and as it's estimated the cash-strapped NHS would save £300 million annually through resulting earlier recognition, you would expect Jeremy Hunt to be moving very quickly on this.
The Health Secretary has yet to even reply to the letter.
In a statement to ITV News, the Department of Health admitted there was "still much more that can be done" to raise awareness of the condition.
The letter in full