GRASP-Fever and CCG IAF on sepsis awareness raising

A new CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework (IAF) 2017/18 indicator on sepsis awareness raising for health professionals has just been published by NHS England. This is of particular interest to PRIMIS Hub members using, or thinking of using, the GRASP-Fever tool.

The CCG-IAF is intended to raise the profile of sepsis. The assessment and management of this serious condition could be improved by increasing awareness amongst healthcare professionals as they come into contact with patients at the earliest stages of the illness. This is when a significant impact on subsequent outcomes can be made.

CCGs are being encouraged to develop and potentially fund local strategies to use thesepsis resources developed by Health Education England. The aim for local strategies is to raise awareness of sepsis and the use of the National Early Warning Score (NEWS)amongst healthcare practitioners.

GRASP-Fever quality improvement tool

Part of the assessment criteria for the IAF will include the use of the GRASP-Fever quality improvement tool in primary care within each CCG. GRASP-Fever has been developed by PRIMIS and is delivered in partnership with NHS England.

Assessment will be largely by means of self-completed questionnaires, however, NHS England will triangulate the responses with the data on local use of GRASP-fever and local improvements in the national sepsis Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) data to develop an overall assessment rating for each CCG.

All PRIMIS Hub members within England have FREE access to the GRASP-Fever quality improvement tool

This quality improvement tool enables practices to review their clinical management of young children presenting with a fever. It will help to increase the use of the traffic light system for identifying risk of serious illness recommended by NICE, leading to improvements in care, better identification of those at risk of serious infection and improved assessment of cases for admission. The tool comes packaged with a GP IT system template to support data entry.

The GRASP-Fever tool identifies all children on the practice register under the age of five who have presented with a feverish illness in the past three months. Clinicians can then ascertain compliance with NICE guidance, opportunities for improvement and examine individual patient cases where desired.

PRIMIS Hub members in England can use GRASP-Fever free of charge*. GRASP-Fever can be downloaded via Check for Updates within CHART. If you have not used any of the GRASP suite of tools before, you will need to request access through the GRASP suite page on the PRIMIS Hub site (you will need to log in). Anyone already using another GRASP tool (such as GRASP-AF) will already have permission to use GRASP-Fever.

For queries concerning the CCG IAF on sepsis please contact Helen Wilkinson, Audit for Improvement Team at NHS England: helen.wilkinson22@nhs.net

* Applies to members in England with an NHS email