Parliament's first 'bionic peer' enters House of Lords and vows to raise awareness of sepsis
ITV News Politics Reporter Jasmine Cameron-Chileshe reports that Craig Mackinlay takes up his peerage in the Lords, he will now campaign to raise awareness about the disease so it can be spotted earlier and treated better
The House of Lords' first ever "bionic" peer has said he is determined to raise awareness of sepsis and has vowed to improve the quality of prosthetics offered to fellow amputees.
Lord Mackinlay, of Richborough, is the first quadruple amputee to be introduced to the House of Lords after he was given a peerage in Rishi Sunak’s dissolution honours list.
The former Conservative MP for South Thanet, was rushed to hospital and put in a 16-day induced coma in September 2023. His wife was told he only had a 5% chance of survival.
The 57-year-old then had both legs and both arms amputated in December.
Speaking on life after sepsis, he said: “You’re reliant on other people, and you do get frustrated, and I’ve never been the most patient of characters even before this. So yes, it’s difficult.
“But there’s two things that keep me going really, I can do more things today than I could do yesterday, so I’ll be able to do more tomorrow. And, you’ve got to say well it’s better than the alternative, and I was very close to the alternative, which was death.”
On an episode of a podcast called The Sepsis Voices with Dr Ron, Lord Mackinlay described himself as a “bionic Lord” due to his prosthetics.
He has pledged to "battle" with the Health Secretary on working to ensure amputees receive adequate prosthetic limbs, condemning a "postcode lottery" system currently faced by those relying on the NHS.
He said: “The NHS work off a list: year one you’ll have these rubber, blunt instruments. Year two, they might give you a body-powered thing that looks like something out of Victorian times.
“And year three they might start talking about electric ones that you really wanted in the first place. So what are you meant to do for those three years? Go into a total mental health hole?”
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Lord Mackinlay added he wants to see a sepsis campaign mirroring the NHS's Act FAST, which has raised awareness for stroke symptoms.
He said: He added: “The trouble is there’s not really a one size fits all menu, not really, but to try and get an awareness early, because sepsis kills 48,000 people a year, it’s a huge killer in the UK.
“We devote a lot of time to looking at other diseases, but not quite the same to this mass killer.”
He said he was grateful for the support of his family, particularly his five-year-old daughter.
He said: "She puts stuff on for me, she’ll help me put my legs on. In some little jobs, she becomes my hands, little tricky jobs I can’t do."
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