“It was fantastic to see the number of people in pink at parkruns around the country helping to raise awareness of sepsis,” according to Denise McCarthy, ADON (Assistant Director of Nursing) Sepsis, HSE South/South West Hospital Group, speaking of the initiative held recently to mark World Sepsis Day. “We know that early recognition and treatment of sepsis can lead to better outcomes, so we wanted to include communities in our approach to increase knowledge around the signs and symptoms.”

The HSE Sepsis Programme partnered with Parkrun Ireland to help raise awareness of sepsis. The Sepsis Team and healthcare colleagues across Ireland participated in parkruns during September in Cork, Dublin, Kerry, Laois, Limerick and Mayo. Attendees were encouraged to wear pink to help raise awareness and share their images on social media.

Denise added that “last year, some of us attended our local parkrun to raise awareness and we had really good engagement. So we decided to reach out to Parkrun Ireland again to have a larger presence this year. It really paid off because the response was fantastic. We had so many people coming up to talk to us to learn more about sepsis, with many sharing their stories of friends and family who had had sepsis.”

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by any infection. There were over 15,700 cases of sepsis and septic shock notified in hospitals last year. It is known that 1 in 5 people who develop sepsis die from it. Research has found that symptoms of sepsis are easy to dismiss, miss or mistake for something else. It is important to recognise the signs and to get urgent medical help if sepsis is suspected.

The HSE National Sepsis Report 2023 found that, although cases of sepsis had increased, the mortality rate - 19.3% - had decreased when compared with the previous year - 21.8%. Many quality improvement initiatives are being implemented by staff across hospitals, helping to reduce sepsis-associated deaths.

The 2023 report also found that 64% of people who died from sepsis were aged 75 or over. It established that 27% of sepsis patients were admitted to critical care beds. There were 260 cases of pregnancy-related sepsis, with no deaths. Between 2020 and 2023 a total of 2,891 cases involved children, of whom 117 died.

Sepsis education training is available on HSeLand for health and social care professionals. For more information on the signs and symptoms of sepsis, visit hse.ie/sepsis