Sepsis (for EDs and UCCs)

Key messages

Sepsis is one of the leading causes of death in hospital patients worldwide.

It is a time-critical illness requiring early identification and prompt intervention to improve patient outcomes.

Together with healthcare staff and consumers we have developed resources for emergency departments and urgent care centres to support early recognition and management of sepsis.

On this page

Sepsis clinical pathways

These clinical pathways aim to support emergency departments and urgent care centres to recognise and manage patients presenting with sepsis.

The pathways include recognition criteria, treatment guidance focused on the six key actions of managing sepsis and an empiric antibiotic guide.

Implementing the clinical pathways

Use our change package and associated resources to successfully implement the pathway in your emergency department or urgent care centre.

The document includes:

a step-by-step guide to implementing the sepsis pathway (with project timeline)
examples of measures to track
quality improvement tools, such as driver diagram and plan-do-study-act (PDSA) templates.

Other resources are included below. Your can adapt these to help you communicate the pathway to staff, and monitor your progress.