[00:00:00] Speaker A: Just a disclaimer. We are not doctors. We are not medical professionals. We are just two girls who have survived sepsis that are navigating their recovery.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: If there is anything that you are seriously struggling with, we urge you to contact a GP. And if you think that you might have sepsis, you should seek immediate medical care, as sepsis is life threatening and time critical.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: We just wanted to pop a little trigger warning in as well, that this podcast may contain content that listeners find distressing.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Please listen with care and always remember to be kind to yourselves where possible.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Hi, guys, and welcome back to the surviving and thriving podcast. Today, as you're listening to this episode, it's World Sepsis Day, and we thought we'd give you a little bonus episode. We have a very special guest with us today, Ron. And would you like to introduce yourself to the podcast and just let us know a little bit about the work you do and the UK sepsis trust?
[00:00:52] Speaker C: Well, yeah, of course, taz. And thank you for inviting me. And it's really important that you raise awareness, because, frankly, we're not so good at reaching your demographic. My name's Ron. My background. I'm an NHS consultant in intensive care, working in Birmingham. I sort of became really motivated to improve outcomes from sepsis back in 2004, would you believe when I watched a young man called Jem Die and he left two young children, Tom and Emily. And I just thought, this is so unjust. We have to fix this. So, since that time, I've founded the UK charity, and I'm now the chief executive or joint chief executive of the UK Sepsis Trust. And I also helped to found a global charity, the Global Sepsis alliance, which is the organization that created World Sepsis Day. And I'm one of the vice presidents of that organization.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Amazing. And as we spoke about in our first episode, that the work, especially the UK sepsis trust does for the sepsis community is absolutely incredible that so many people that are listening to this episode just want to thank you, because the work that you guys do, and it's just incredible. I'm very lucky that I get to volunteer for you guys and I get to do amazing work, and it just really helps to flip a not so positive experience into a positive experience. So that's great.
[00:02:14] Speaker C: Thank you. I mean, I have to confess, it makes me quite emotional listening to you say that. It's an incredible privilege to be leading this organization and to be allowed to help so many people.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Amazing. Olivia, do you want to start off? We've got a few questions for you. Just so that our listeners can get a bit more of a medical understanding, because as much as we like to think we know everything, we definitely don't, of course.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: And if you don't mind, just off the back of what Taz said, ron, it's incredible what you do, and even to hear you say that you're a consultant on intensive care, like, I just know how I feel towards the people that looked after me in intensive care. I'll never forget their names, I'll remember their faces for the rest of my life. So, yeah, it's like, incredible work that I really don't think you get enough recognition for. And same with Taz. I've done a bit of volunteer work for the UK sepsis trust and raised some money for you guys last year. So thank you so much. It's so lovely to have a space where people who have survived can go and have resources that are there for us. And I remember, like, during, when I came up hospital in my recovery, like, it was such a safe space for me. So thank you so much.
I'm going to start my question by asking you to explain to our listeners, please, in the simplest way, what sepsis is, because we've talked about misconceptions. So if you could just, in the easiest way possible, explain what sepsis is.
[00:03:39] Speaker C: So, sepsis is the way the body responds to an infection, so it's always triggered by an infection, and that could be anything, really. It can be a chest infection, a UTih, something as simple as a cut or a bite or a sting. But in sepsis, the body's immune system reacts abnormally. Now, we say overreacts, but it's not quite as simple as that. But that's fine. Let's say it overreacts through the infection and that starts to cause organ damage, and it's that that starts to threaten lives. So it doesn't have to be a very serious infection. This is all down to our pesky immune system, which is normally there to protect us, but in sepsis, does more harm than good.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: That's awesome. And just bouncing off the back of that one, Ron, is there an explanation as to why some people's or certain infections develop into sepsis whereas others don't?
[00:04:32] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I mean, that is a great question.
We don't fully understand this. We know that there are some genetic factors, but they don't account for every case of sepsis. So some people are more prone to developing sepsis with some bugs than other people are outside the genetics. It's often down to how virulent, how pathogenic the organism is. Now, I wouldn't have used those words before the pandemic, but I think most of us have heard those words now. It's how nasty the bug is, how likely it is to cause the infection, as well as where in the body the infection is, how close it is to the blood vessels and how big the infection is, how many bugs are causing the problem. But the other factor that we don't fully understand is that often people who develop sepsis have had a preceding sort of viral illness, a minor viral illness that seems to prime their immune system to react abnormally when they get a secondary bacterial infection.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Oh, wow. That's very interesting. I didn't realize that.
[00:05:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: I mean, that's interesting.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: So, is it? Is it essentially, Jeanette, am I getting it right, thinking it's genetic? Like, is it just a luck of the draw? Basically, what if previous illnesses have led your immune system to be weakened?
[00:05:50] Speaker C: Yeah. And so this isn't something that only affects humans. So all mammals develop sepsis. Vets know sepsis inside out because it can affect dogs, cats, horses, anything. And if there's any vets listening, it might affect amphibians and reptiles. I simply don't know.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: But that's so interesting. I didn't know that.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: No idea.
[00:06:09] Speaker C: And it's not all down to genetics. We think genetics explains a few of the cases. Other cases, it's down to what's happened to them recently in terms of a viral infection, if they're a bit under the weather, whether they've contracted a particularly nasty bug. And then, of course, there are risk factors to do with someone's health at the time that can precipitate. So things like diabetes, lung disease, COPD, that sort of thing, make it more likely you'll get an infection. If you're on chemotherapy, you're more likely to develop an infection. If you're on steroids, you're more likely. And similarly, if you've had surgery, people who are pregnant, or women who are pregnant, I'm going to say, are slightly more at risk of sepsis than similar aged women who are not pregnant. But that's felt to mostly be because they're more in contact with healthcare than women who aren't pregnant. And the good news is that if you do develop sepsis whilst you're pregnant or immediately afterwards, your body is designed to cope with it. So your chance of survival is much higher than if you weren't pregnant.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Wow. I also think it's important just to say to our audience that obviously, all of those things are really important, but lots of our listeners probably are around our age, so in their early twenties, twenties that don't have underlying health conditions. And in both mine and Olivia's cases, we were both super fit and healthy before developing sepsis. So it's not. Am I right in saying, Ron, that it's not always the case that you have to have something before developing sepsis?
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's not always a triggering factor, and this can affect anyone, however healthy they are. There's some good data out of New York that show that almost half of adults admitted to their hospitals with sepsis in the year 2019 were working age adults going about their normal lives, going about their normal jobs, many of whom didn't have underlying risk factors. I think it's okay to say that there are groups who are at risk, but, yes, we must reinforce it can happen to anyone.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I definitely think that's important. Just especially, like, within the media, a lot of the. Not so much now, obviously, it's amazing that it's getting spoken about so much, but especially, like, 510 years ago, lots of the kind of media along sepsis was more for the older generation. Would you agree, Ron?
[00:08:27] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And honestly, older people are more likely to develop it. But I think now the media are really picking up on the children who've sadly developed sepsis. The young women particularly, particularly because the media is fond of telling stories of young women who've been affected. You know, we've heard recently of Craig McKinley, the parliamentarian who's, you know, in the prime of his life, who's lost all four of his limbs as a consequence of sepsis, and he was fighting it previously. This can affect anyone.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So just off the back of that, Ron, why do you think that sepsis can be missed or misdiagnosed in hospital?
[00:09:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it can be really hard to spot. I mean, we've already said it can arise as a complication of any infection. So the symptoms that people start with will vary hugely, and it arises in people of any age, whether or not they've got an underlying condition. And people also describe what's happening with their sepsis in different ways. With a heart attack. Most people, not all, but most people have a crushing pain in the middle of their chest, and most people describe that in a similar way. But in sepsis, as you will both know, you get all these weird sensations, impending Zoom sensation. You feel like you're going to die. You just feel very washed out, fatigued. It's a really bizarre sensation. And people communicate that in different ways. And we shouldn't forget the neurodivergent population and the learning disabilities population, who might find it even more difficult to communicate how well they are. So it can be really hard to spot. There's no one test for sepsis, to get this right demands that the public get to healthcare on time. They're empowered to ask that question, could it be sepsis? And health professionals are switched onto it, well trained, and have the time to look for it.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you're right as well when you said about all of these symptoms, because we know that there are a list of symptoms, and I think that people I've spoke to, especially who have had sepsis, you don't get all of the symptoms, do you? You could have one or two, or you could have all of them. But I think that often, like, for example, I wasn't going to the toilet and things, but you know what I mean, like, all of these symptoms don't all come at once. They could come sporadically. And, yeah, it's different for different people. And like you said, when there's also, I find it interesting with the pain thing, like, you can't gauge people's pain, right? You know, if people are asking you on like a scale of one to ten, you're pain. So if I'm saying it's like chronic pain, for me, that might be chronic, but for Taz, she might not be feeling any pain. So I think that's quite difficult as well.
[00:11:09] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, regarding the symptoms, you're absolutely right. You only have to have one of those symptoms together with symptoms of an infection somewhere in your body. And that's enough to go straight to a and e. And that was approved by the powers that be. It was approved by Public Health England, as was. So it's just one of the symptoms you need. We know, and on the day of broadcast of this podcast, we're going to be issuing our own press release saying that public awareness of sepsis as a medical emergency has never been higher in the UK. It's in the nineties percent. It's incredible. So many people now know about it, but not that many can remember the symptoms. So it is important to remind people listening that you can find the symptoms on our
[email protected]. dot.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Amazing. And just again, talking about people having the confidence to go to a and e with symptoms.
As a medical professional, what is the difference in early sepsis diagnosis compared to a late diagnosis or detection?
[00:12:15] Speaker C: Well, it can vary from person to person, really. We know that if people are crushingly ill, they present and they've deteriorated rapidly. They're obviously in multiorgan failure. In those patients, every minute counts. We talk about the magic first hour, but it's actually, if we can get the antibiotics in within 1 hour, that's going to make a difference to outcome. A lot of people, though, have a much slower trajectory. They deteriorate a lot more slowly. And in those people, it's probably okay to wait a little bit longer. And indeed, globally and in the UK, recent changes to the guidance have said if you're a bit less sick, it's okay to wait for up to 3 hours to give the antibiotics. Important to reinforce that. We're not saying that 3 hours is a target. You've got to give them at 2 hours, 59 minutes and wait a bit longer to build a bit more information.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. And I think it's important, again, in both mine and Elizabeth. Oh my God, I can't speak today. Mine and Olivia's cases is that especially for me, from the first day of me feeling unwell to then going into hospital was seven days. And it was more within like the last three days that I noticed the massive difference. So it is interesting.
[00:13:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it is. And, you know, if a lawyer contacts me and says, what do you think about this? And the antibiotics were given at an hour and a half. For someone like you, that's probably quite reasonable, but again, for someone like Craig McKinley, who lost his limbs, that's not reasonable at all. So I think it's important that we remember every patient developing sepsis is different. It's important that we don't wait for 16 hours before we start treating them. But for some people, we can wait a little bit longer than 1 hour.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
I'm just going to ask another question for you.
For both me and Olivia, we developed septic arthritis off the back of having sepsis. I just wondered if you could explain septic arthritis in a bit more detail and why it might settle in particular parts of the body.
[00:14:18] Speaker C: Okay, so septic arthritis is a term that we use to describe an infection in the joint. So it can happen in any joint, it can happen in the knee, the elbow, the hip and so on and so forth.
That can give rise to sepsis. But an infected joint itself is not sepsis. So actually the term septic arthritis, and sorry if this upsets you, is not a very healthy term. It's a term that's very commonly used. We very commonly use it with patients, but it just means an infected joint. In your cases, that precipitated sepsis, where the body became inflamed and you became very ill. But it is an infection in the joint, and it's usually all of your joints. All of. All of your big mobile joints have something called synovial fluid in it. It's like this jelly like fluid that keeps your joints supple and moving, and the infection usually develops within that fluid space.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Okay, awesome. That's so helpful.
[00:15:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Could I just ask a question about that? So me and Taz were talking about this in our last episode. We both. We both had the term, like, we've called it septic arthritis.
So I had pneumonia, Taz had strep a, and I have never, like, can't figure it out. And I've had, like, follow ups of my consultants and everything, and they essentially told me that the sepsis finds, like, a weak part in your body and will just live and grow there, which is why we were in so much pain. But I think we both can't understand, like, understand that. Like, in the sense of. So was. So the sepsis came from the pneumonia and the strep a and then was the sepsis in our hip.
[00:16:00] Speaker C: So the infection was in your hip?
[00:16:04] Speaker B: That's the infection. Sorry. Yeah.
[00:16:06] Speaker C: And I think this is a challenge when health professionals are using slightly imprecise words to describe what's going on with you. So the sepsis wasn't in your hip, the infection was in your hip. The sepsis was the way your body responded to it. But I think what they said about the bugs finding a space in your body to take a hold, that relates to the fact that antibiotics don't get into joints all that well. So it's difficult to treat those infections. So they can sort of. They can. They can seed there from somewhere else in your body. And when they are in your joint, it can be really difficult to treat them and really difficult to get rid of them. And that can mean that some people with an infected joint can have a course of antibiotics, they get a bit better, but then it comes back again.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: That's really interesting to know.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Yeah, that is really interesting. And I think it's. It was just a bit of a gray area for me and Tasman. We were talking last week because we were trying to explain to our listeners what we thought went wrong, and we sort of couldn't. Because we. We couldn't really pinpoint how, like, that sort of the timeline, whether you. You get unwell and then you have the infection, and then from the infection comes sepsis. But I think that when we speak to people, I know that in my personal life, I tell people about the infection and help hip a lot. People don't really get how I had pneumonia and then an infection in my hip, you know, I think this is the timeline that confuses people.
Yeah.
[00:17:26] Speaker C: And obviously, I can't apologize on behalf of the medical profession, but as an individual, I'm sorry that people confuse you by using slightly outdated terms.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Oh, that's totally fine. It's not. Yeah. I think that, like you said, it's just the awareness, and I think it's a big confidence thing, giving people, like medical professionals the confidence to be able to spot it by giving them as much information as possible, because knowledge is power. Right. So the more we know, the better we can do. And I think it's just before I had sepsis, I had absolutely no idea what it was. I'd heard the term, but if someone had asked me what a symptom was, I wouldn't have been able to tell them. It's just like, when we know better, we can do better sort of thing, isn't it?
[00:18:10] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And our call to the action, to the public is it's really in two phases, that if you're a bit worried about you or someone you love who seems to be getting a bit worse with an infection, that's when you go to 111 online or make an appointment to see the GP and just ask, could it be sepsis? But if you're really worried, we've got that list of six symptoms that spell the word sepsis, and any one of those goes straight to a and e. Yeah, perfect.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Because I think that as well. I don't want to keep going back to me, but I think that it's difficult when you like. My partner rang 111 and explained my symptoms, and because he said, she's got a pain in her hip, she can't walk, they said, oh, it sounds like she's got sciatica. And they just prescribed me some medication, which turns out obviously wasn't sciatica. So I think it's just that giving people as much information as possible so that they know where to signpost.
[00:19:04] Speaker C: Yeah. And that's the way one. One works. They have to choose what is your biggest, and then they get taken down a list of questions. You have to remember that people who are on one one are not clinicians. They've had a few weeks of training, some of them are brilliant, but some of them are pretty new to the job and, you know, the way you communicate what's going on is really important. And the british people really tend to be stoical. They tend to sort of downplay their symptoms. If you're feeling like you're going to die and they say, do you feel seriously ill? Say, yes, I do.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. So we were speaking about that last week, right? Yeah, we were speaking about that last week how in both, like, for both of us, there's always a time in life to, you know, be brave and kind of put on a front. There's also a time when you know you're seriously unwell, to know when it's your time to say something's wrong. And I guess, again, it's that thing about how the symptoms can be so hard to spot in that if you're not confident in kind of saying exactly how you feel, it then makes it doubly hard for someone to understand.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Because I always say, now, if I had sepsis again, I'd be able to spot it.
When I didn't know anything, I obviously had no idea what I was looking out for, even one of the symptoms. I didn't even know. So, absolutely.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: I think the message here, because obviously we don't want to encourage people to over egg their symptoms, but I think the advice here is, if you're really worried, now is not the time to be brave. Just be honest. If you feel like you've never felt before, you feel like you're getting worse, you have to say it, because it might actually make a difference between a good outcome and a bad outcome.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I do sometimes wonder, because I put off bringing an ambulance for a long time, I think it probably could have saved me from everything that happened afterwards. So I would strongly encourage anybody to, like. Taz will agree it's a feeling like no other and nobody can understand what it feels like to have sepsis and, like, believe in yourself and trust your gut and you know something's wrong and don't feel like I felt like I was going to be a burden and I was going to waste the NHS money, but actually, I just put a lot more strain on my body because then what came afterwards? I actually ended up being in hospital for a month, so I didn't save the NHS any money.
[00:21:30] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, you're going to be, as you say, you're going to be much more of a burden on the NHS if you wait and wait and end up in hospital hospital for a month and needing aftercare for several months beyond that than you are if you just be honest upfront, go in, get treated, get sorted.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Totally, yeah.
We've got another question, Ron, would you be able to explain, please, a little more about Martha's rule and how it is going to positively impact the future of sepsis cases?
[00:22:02] Speaker C: So, for those who aren't aware of Martha's rule, because health professionals will know of it, if you've read the Guardian or watching the news at the time it came about, you'll know about it. But Martha's rule related to the tragic death of a young girl called Martha Mills. She was on a bike ride with her family, she came off a bike and the handlebar caused an injury to her pancreas gland. Now, she was admitted to a hospital in London and after a little while, she started to deteriorate and the health professionals looking after her really didn't take it seriously. And it is alleged that they were a little bit arrogant and didn't listen to her mum. Now, her mum, rope mills, is the editor of the Guardian, and so she became incensed by this, because Martha subsequently died and she felt she wasn't taken seriously. So Martha's rule is about the right of any family, be it the family of a child or an adult, to a second opinion. So if you're worried your loved one's in a hospital, you think they're not being treated as they should, you think the diagnosis is wrong or you think they're getting worse and no one's noticed it, then you can activate a second opinion. It's not in place in every hospital yet, it's being piloted in about half of NHS hospitals, but it's being taken very seriously. Now, I don't think this is going to save every person from sepsis, because we have to understand that some communities, particularly those who don't have English as a first language, are going to be less likely to activate Martha's rule than others. So we need to understand that this, there's equity of access to Martha's rule, that the resources in place to deliver it, and if we do all of that, it will save a percentage of lives. It's important to note Martha's rule isn't just about sepsis, so if you've got another condition and the person's deteriorating, you can still activate Martha's role. So, yes, it's got potential to save lives, but it's got to be delivered properly and we've got to ensure that underrepresented communities have ready access to it.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think that, again, I guess the kind of underlying theme of this whole podcast is just confidence. And I guess this kind of rule doesn't mean that, as you said, it won't save everyone, but if it gives someone the confidence and the kind of direction to be able to ask again, that could be the difference between, you know, life or death in some cases, yeah, absolutely.
[00:24:28] Speaker C: And in a lot of cases, the delivery of Martha's rule has fallen to a group of very experienced nurses called the critical care outreach team, and they're a really good liaison with the intensive care doctors. So, you know, hopefully, if delivered correctly, then this will absolutely save quite a good number of lives. But we have to remember, unless there's investment in more staff to deliver it, it might take away from other areas of work.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Exactly. That makes a load of sense. And just one last question for you, Ron. We're kind of backtracking a little bit more to the medical side of things in the.
In an easy way for our listeners. What medical tests are done to detect sepsis in hospital?
[00:25:15] Speaker C: So, recognizing sepsis, we call it a clinical diagnosis, which means I. There's not a single test. We've already said that. There's not one blood test that can say, we check a person's vital signs, their blood pressure, their heart rate, and so forth. And if they are abnormal, that will make us start to think about sepsis. We look for the infection. Now, that might be an x ray. It might be looking at the urine, depending on where we think the infection is. And that will help to boost the suspicion of sepsis. And then we do a whole range of blood tests. Now, blood cultures, you might have heard of, where we look for the bug that's causing it. That's part of it. But we're also looking at the way the organs are functioning. So we do lab based blood tests, and then something called a blood gas that's done in a and e or in the intensive care unit. And bringing all of that information together can help us to diagnose sepsis. So you can see this is not an easy diagnosis. For a heart attack, we need two of three things. So to diagnose a heart attack, we need two of an abnormal ECG, a classical history, and a single blood test called troponin. For any two of those, we diagnose a heart attack. Sepsis is so much more complicated, and that's why it can be missed so easily.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much. That's so helpful, especially for our listeners, just to kind of understand how hard sepsis detects, because it's easy enough for us to sit here and as non medical professionals and just say, oh, why can't everyone detect sepsis? But it is obviously, as you've explained, so much harder than just saying that.
[00:26:50] Speaker C: Yeah. And the other thing, which is horrific, but it is a fact of life, is that there's more money following good care of heart attack and stroke than there is sepsis. So we are urging the government to take this a lot more seriously and invest in improving outcomes.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. And I know that there is a petition at the moment that you guys at the UK sepsis trust have organised. Can you just tell us a little bit more about that?
[00:27:18] Speaker C: Yeah. So the petition is, it's a political instrument, and if you get enough signatures, then it may well be discussed in parliament. And this is really around calling upon the government to commission for excellent sepsis services, just as they do with heart attack and stroke. But we're really asking, because that's a sort of a longer term thing. There are three quick wins that can be delivered right now. The first is around better data. We would like public reporting of the NHS's performance around sepsis, how reliably we're treating people, what their outcomes are like, how many are surviving, how long they spend in hospital and so forth, and perhaps even at the level where we can compare performance between hospitals so we know what's working well, what's working less well.
The second thing is around better diagnostics. Now, we've talked about the tests we can do, which we call diagnostics, but there are some novel ones out there that are a bit quicker, that we can get the information a lot more quickly. The NHS isn't very good at adopting those novel diagnostics. So the second call is to empower hospitals to buy these diagnostics in, of course, a carefully controlled fashion, so that we can improve the recognition of sepsis. And the third is, and you will both really empathize with this, it's around signposting to information. So for people who've survived sepsis, signpost them to the support services that the UK sepsis trust offers, because we can be a lifeline and often people only find us by accident after googling for a number of hours. So signpost people when they're discharged routinely. And then for people who are at high risk of sepsis, perhaps people who've had a particular procedure, signpost them to what to look for. Give them a leaflet when they're discharged after their procedure, saying, this is what to look for with sepsis. So those three quick wins, we feel, will save a lot of lives and improve outcomes for survivors.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that is so important. And I know that I touched on it at the beginning of the episode, but I just wanted to kind of say again, and I'm gonna try not to get emotional when I say this, but without a doubt, the team at the UK sepsis trust, I would say saved my life again, because after being unwell, I'm gonna get upset.
I was in such a dark place and I just think that without them, I. Oh, my goodness. I wouldn't have had any direction and I wouldn't have known what to do. So I just wanted to say thank you again, Ron, for everything that you're doing.
[00:29:56] Speaker C: Oh, bless you. That's incredible. And again, I'll try to get.
Not get emotional, but it's a privilege to have Oliver, Katie and Emma on the team. There are support nurses for people who don't know they do deliver a lifeline and you might not know, Oliver's actually my brother in law.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Is he? Oh, my goodness.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Oliver.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: He was the first person I spoke to. He'll know me very well.
[00:30:22] Speaker C: Yeah. So, yeah. And they're all very experienced intensive care nurses who've done a lot of training in counseling and therapy and all sorts of things, and they are there to help you and it is a privilege to be able to employ them.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Amazing. And I would just like to say, me and Taz talk about this all the time and I think we feel the same way that people, the nurses, consultants, everyone that works in intensive care are the unsung heroes of the NHS. You do incredible work. Thank you so much for everything you do.
You're literally incredible. Unless you've been in intensive care, you will not know to the extent in which they work so hard and tirelessly.
They save people's lives every day. So I just want to say thank you so much, Ron. You're incredible. The work you do is incredible and we are so grateful and we need people like you.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: We're a big Ron fan club. Go wrong.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Go wrong.
No, I think that it's given all people. No, because it's not. And not everyone in their lifetime will spend time in an intensive care. And I think that unless you've been there and you have experienced it, you can fully appreciate the depths of what they do. And I am so grateful and I know that Taz is as well. It's just something that is. Will forever be in my heart. And I think that unless you've experienced it, you will just not understand or the extent of it. But honestly, the gratitude, Will.
Yeah.
[00:31:53] Speaker C: That'S really kind. I mean, I think I should say, in case there's any non intensive care health professionals listening, we are very lucky in intensive care. We have massive staffing ratios, so. And most of us who work there, work there because we know we can deliver the very, very best every time for every patient. And not every health professional is in that position, but it's lovely to be appreciated.
[00:32:16] Speaker A: Awesome. I guess we'll just wrap up the episode now, but I just wanted to say to all our listeners that Ron also has a podcast with the UK sepsis Trust. It's called sepsis voices with Doctor Ron, and there are some amazing conversations on there. So if you fancy it, we've only got two episodes at the moment, so if you want to listen to some more, then head over there and listen to those, because they're incredible.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: Thank you for the plug.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Always shout out.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: And I would just like to add, for anybody who has survived sepsis or has any relatives going through sepsis, you can google the UK sepsis trust. There are so many resources on there for survivors, people who are maybe.
What am I trying to say here? They have symptoms and think they might have sepsis. It's all on there. There are so many resources on there. Like me and Taz said, we both found so much.
Yeah. There we go. Thanks.
No one's gonna be able to see you doing that. Taz is just holding up a pamphlet for just asking for sepsis. There's so many amazing resources on there and the work they do is incredible. You can just Google UK sepsis trust and everything is there for you.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome. We just wanted to say thank you again, Ron, for joining us.
[00:33:30] Speaker B: It's an absolute pleasure to have you on here.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me on and really important work you guys are doing. So thank you so much.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you.
