Sepsis is associated with an estimated 48,000 deaths in the UK every year, more than lung, bowel, and breast cancer combined. It is not a disease you catch. It is the body’s own immune response to an infection spiralling out of control, turning something manageable into a systemic crisis that can damage organs and kill within hours. Up to a quarter of those deaths are considered preventable with earlier recognition and faster treatment.

This post covers what sepsis is, who is most at risk, how clinical teams identify deteriorating patients, and why infection prevention sits at the heart of reducing the UK’s sepsis burden.

What Is Sepsis?

Sepsis occurs when the body’s response to infection becomes dysregulated and starts damaging its own tissues and organs. The immune system, instead of targeting the infection and standing down, triggers widespread inflammation that compromises blood flow and organ function. Without rapid treatment, it can progress to septic shock, where blood pressure drops to a point the body cannot sustain, and mortality rates rise sharply even with intensive care.

Any infection can trigger it. The most common sources are urinary tract infections, pneumonia, abdominal infections, surgical site infections, and skin infections. NHS England estimates around 70% of cases originate in the community, which is why public awareness matters just as much as clinical training.

Sources: UK Sepsis Trust; ONS mortality data

Who Is Most at Risk?

Sepsis can affect anyone, but NICE guideline NG51 identifies specific groups where clinical suspicion should be heightened from the outset. These are adults over 75, babies and children under one, people with impaired immunity (whether from chemotherapy, diabetes, long-term steroids, or conditions such as sickle cell disease), pregnant women and those recently post-partum, and anyone recovering from surgery or an invasive procedure. A 2024 population-based study published in Infection also found significant associations between socioeconomic deprivation and both incidence and fatality rates across England.

Recognising the Signs

The difficulty with sepsis is that early signs overlap with many less serious conditions. What distinguishes it is the speed of deterioration and the combination of symptoms appearing together. The UK Sepsis Trust’s public awareness campaign encourages people to ask “Could it be sepsis?” whenever someone is becoming unusually unwell, unusually fast, following an infection.

How Clinical Teams Identify Deteriorating Patients: NEWS2

The National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS2), developed by the Royal College of Physicians and endorsed by NHS England, is the standard framework used across NHS trusts to identify patients at risk of acute deterioration. It assigns a numerical score to six physiological parameters. A combined score of 5 or above triggers an urgent review; 7 or above indicates high risk.

Parameter	What It Measures	Score Range
Respiration rate	Breaths per minute	0–3
Temperature	Core body temperature (°C)	0–3
Oxygen saturation (SpO2)	Blood oxygen levels	0–3
Systolic blood pressure	Cardiovascular pressure	0–3
Pulse rate	Heart rate in beats per minute	0–3
Consciousness / new confusion	AVPU scale	0 or 3

It is important to understand what NEWS2 is and what it is not. It is a physiological monitoring and escalation tool. It does not diagnose sepsis and is not a standalone test for anything. Temperature is one of six parameters that together form an overall picture of patient status. Each parameter matters, which is why the accuracy and reliability of every measurement in an observation round is clinically significant. You can find the full NICE guidance on applying NEWS2 in suspected sepsis cases here.

The Sepsis Six: Responding Once Sepsis Is Suspected

The Sepsis Six is a care bundle developed by the UK Sepsis Trust and endorsed by NICE that sets out six interventions to be delivered within one hour of suspected sepsis. It is in use across 96% of British hospitals and has been associated with a 50% reduction in mortality in clinical studies.

The six interventions are: administer high-flow oxygen, take blood cultures before antibiotics, give intravenous antibiotics promptly, administer intravenous fluids, measure blood lactate, and monitor urine output. None of these are complex in isolation. The value of the bundle format is that it converts best practice into a checklist that can be executed reliably even under time pressure, when cognitive load is high and teams are stretched.

Prevention: The IPC Connection

Because around 30% of sepsis cases originate in healthcare settings, a meaningful proportion of the UK’s annual sepsis burden is directly linked to healthcare-acquired infections. Every catheter-associated UTI, surgical site infection, or hospital-acquired pneumonia that can be prevented is a potential sepsis case that never develops. This is why infection prevention and control is not just an operational concern but a patient safety one with direct mortality implications.

Where Non-Contact Temperature Monitoring Fits In

We want to be clear about this, because clarity matters: a thermometer does not diagnose sepsis. Temperature is one parameter in a six-parameter scoring system, and sepsis is a clinical diagnosis made by a clinician assessing the full picture. No device changes that.

What non-contact thermometry does change is the IPC profile of an observation round. Standard tympanic thermometers use disposable probe covers that must be correctly fitted, restocked, and safely disposed of after every use. In a routine ward environment that is manageable. In a high-frequency observation setting, particularly where patients are already at elevated infection risk, probe cover compliance can be harder to sustain consistently. There is documented evidence of ear thermometer probe covers contributing to cross-contamination in clinical settings, most notably in a Candida Auris transmission event at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

TRITEMP™ takes a reading in under one second with no physical contact with the patient and no consumables. Nothing touches the patient during measurement. For IPC leads and ward managers thinking about observation workflows, particularly in environments where sepsis pathways demand frequent re-scoring, that removes a category of cross-contamination risk from the process entirely without adding time or cost. You can read more about how this applies in practice in our overview of why infection control matters across the full care pathway.

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