Health and Wellbeing

Empowering our teams to spot the signs of sepsis

Sepsis is a life-threatening response to an infection in the body. It’s believed to be as common as other serious illnesses, including heart attacks and certain types of cancer. If caught in time, it’s treatable with good outcomes for those who contract it. But research estimates sepsis claims the life of five people each hour in the United Kingdom – that’s around 48,000 people annually. With similar symptoms to other illnesses, many people don’t know its dangers and what symptoms to be cautious of.

For those with a learning disability, maintaining awareness of health changes and spotting concerning symptoms present additional challenges. There are many barriers affecting their ability to either notice health changes themselves or communicate health concerns to others. This means they’re around four times more likely to contract sepsis than non-disabled populations.

Our support colleagues understand these challenges as well as the importance of acting fast with serious conditions like sepsis. Alongside being trained to maintain positive health through person-centred support, they receive enhanced coaching that equips them with the confidence and awareness needed for identifying infections and illness. Our Clinical Nurse Educator, Andrea Kingston, works with our support colleagues to ensure they can spot the signs and act quickly. With our holistic approach, the people we support are empowered to confidently manage their health and have the reassurance their support teams are on hand to help them feel their best.

Informed and educated

Every day, our teams use a person-centred approach to supporting people with a learning disability and other complex needs. Through this, they get to know each person as a unique individual, understanding what’s normal for them and what might be a sign something’s not right. Empowering the people we support to self-manage their health is a big part of this – so they can understand themselves, become aware of how they feel and have the confidence to communicate it with their support teams.

Andrea keeps this branch of empowerment in the foreground of our training sessions: “Because we promote independence, we ensure our colleagues enable the people we support to lead in managing their wellbeing and healthcare, where appropriate. We also equip our support colleagues with an awareness of different health conditions. Coupled with their understanding of what is normal for each person, they can then see when something’s not quite right. They can then seek the right support, quickly, preventing further, serious illnesses – like sepsis – from developing.”

With Andrea’s humanistic approach, our colleagues receive accessible, relatable training that doesn’t feel overwhelming. “I use an ‘every contact counts’ approach to training our support colleagues on health awareness. I emphasise learning about things that could happen to anyone – like sepsis – and how these conditions can relate to other, more common conditions. It shows the interconnectivity of everyday illnesses to more serious ones.”

“For example, when we discuss diabetes, we carve space to talk about heart failure too, because they can be connected. And we’ve added sepsis awareness to our catheter care training because people with these are at higher risk of infection, which can lead to sepsis if not treated in time.”

Identifying confidence in abilities as a key factor in addressing health concerns, Andrea draws on both her clinical expertise and formal coaching qualifications to encourage and assure our teams of their abilities. “We reassure our support colleagues that they’re perfectly placed to identify health changes. They use person-centred support and know the people we support incredibly well. Often, it’s a matter of reassurance and confidence. This empowers them to act quickly and seek medical attention when they notice health changes. It’s important to ask and act – even if it’s just for peace of mind. It could save someone’s life.”

Breaking barriers

For people with additional needs, like a learning disability, there are many factors that increase their risk of developing serious conditions or living with poor health. Known as ‘health inequalities’, they can impact someone accessing the healthcare they need, when they need it. These imbalances in treatment can happen for many reasons, but a lack of understanding about individual needs plays a pivotal role. Particularly when communication differences are present.

This is a key aspect that Andrea’s incorporated within training sessions for our support colleagues: “We have many sessions on deterioration of health and recognising changes in people. We show our teams what ‘soft’ signs are – how people with communication differences show they’re unwell through posture, mood, behaviours, eating habits and even sleeping changes. These are often the first signs someone has an infection. Our teams work hard to write communication plans, explaining how each person communicates, what their average presentation is like when they’re well, as well as what changes they’ve presented when they’ve been poorly before. Our support teams use this information to inform support plans and recognise any health changes. We reassure our teams to trust their instincts and just ask someone for a review, so we can catch things early.”

Ongoing commitment

An ongoing commitment, we’re continuously expanding our health awareness training to equip our teams with even more skills and knowledge, so they can appropriately and effectively support the wellbeing of the people we support. With Andrea’s guidance, we’re developing a range of internal resources and handy tools to increase awareness for our teams and the people we support.

“We have an expanding health and wellbeing intranet page with accessible resources, as well as links to safe online spaces where teams can find accurate information from credible sources. We’re also running annual health awareness campaigns that focus on different health matters the people we support are at higher risk of contracting – like sepsis. We’re aiming to improve their health outcomes even more through greater awareness within our support teams and with other healthcare professionals.”

Across our organisation, we’re empowering greater health awareness and advocacy through colleague collaboration. Through shared experiences, we’re opening space for greater learning from real-life experiences. Further supporting the health and wellbeing of the people we support: “We’re embracing a culture where people reflect and learn from each other. Our colleagues receive valuable peer support, encouraging and empowering them with the confidence in a variety of health-related situations. These shared experiences create greater knowledge about health matters, like sepsis. They promote increased awareness and might possibly save someone’s life.”