HOSPITALS in East Lancashire are among the highest for levels of potentially deadly sepsis in the country, new figures reveal.

There were 1,195 patients who required screening for the illness, in which the body’s response to infection injures its own tissues and organs, in East Lancashire Hospitals Trust (ELHT) in the year from March 2016 to March 2017.

However, of these patients, every single one of them were screened for the condition, according to the NHS data.

The figures were revealed in a BBC Panorama programme about the illness, which can lead to multiple organ failure and even death.

Trust bosses said they would be challenging the figures, which they ‘didn’t recognise’.

The issue was raised by Brian Todd, chairman of Blackburn with Darwen Older People’s Forum, at a recent board meeting of ELHT.

Mr Todd said: “I referred to the BBC Panorama programme that had recently been on the television,which indicated that the Trust had one of the highest levels of sepsis across the country and asked what was being done to reduce this issue.

“I wanted reassurance as sepsis can come so suddenly and can easily be missed.

“If it’s not found, it can kill within days.”

Russ McLean, East Lancashire’s patients’ champion discussed the findings with ELHT chief executive Kevin McGee in an interview broadcast on the trusts’s website.

He said: “Could you give me assurances that the trust is working to reduce the number of Sepsis cases and explain how you’re going to address that?

But Mr McGee said: “Sepsis is something we’re acutely aware of, and we’ve got a very detailed programme that works through all the details around sepsis and what should be done and when it should be done and the clinical interventions that are required.

“But we have to say we didn’t recognise the figures that were shown in the BBC programme and we have challenged these figures because we don’t think they’re as high as they show.”

Dr Damian Riley, medical director at ELHT, said that the ‘vast majority’ of patients treated in the trust with high-risk sepsis come to their hospitals already having the condition.

“They rarely develop it while an in-patient,” said Dr Riley.

“Sadly we know that sepsis can be serious, and even fatal, if not treated early. For this reason, within the trust we have an established a Sepsis Task Force.

“The work of this group is to continue to raise awareness across the trust and to standardise our approach to sepsis recognition and management.

“We also monitor patient’s conditions by assessing their vital signs on a regular basis and this creates an “early warning score” for the early detection of unwell patients.”