Rugby star Shaun Lunt is appealing to people to “think sepsis” after he developed the life-threatening condition following a rugby tackle.

Shaun, former captain of Hull KR, suffered an abscess in his spine following the tackle during a game in August 2018 which became infected and he developed sepsis.

Now, as the first anniversary of his battle for survival approaches, Shaun, 32, is supporting Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to mark World Sepsis Day on Friday.

He said: “None of us want to make a fuss but there’s a risk that we don’t take this seriously enough.

“People are scared to look stupid if they mention sepsis but we need to be more cautious and think sepsis, whether they work in the hospital, are looking after someone or feel the worst they’ve ever felt in their life.

“You can lose a limb affecting the rest of your life or even lose your life if you don’t.”

Sepsis is when your body reacts in a toxic, life-threatening way to an infection that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure or death.

Shaun’s health began to deteriorate after he suffered the back injury during the game in August 2018. He was taking painkillers but, by the end of September, he had gone to different hospitals twice as his condition worsened.

One morning, unable to get up off the floor between his bed and his wardrobe, he knew he had to get to hospital immediately.

“I’m one of those that don’t like to make a fuss but I phoned my wife Grace and said I needed to go to hospital,” he said. “It was the worst I’d ever felt.”

Shaun was taken to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield where doctors initially suspected bacterial meningitis before he was diagnosed with the abscess on his spine and sepsis.

After eight days, Hull KR arranged for him to be transferred to Nuffield Hospital in Leeds for 12 days. He was then given antibiotics intravenously through a PICC line for a further six weeks.

Shaun said: “When I came out, I thought I’m getting better and, a couple of months later,  I went to watch a football game with one of my friends. He told me how bad sepsis was and how someone he knew had died from it.

“I was quite naïve about it and hadn’t realised how serious it had been.”

Although he recovered enough to return to playing in March, his battle was far from over.

Shaun struggled with post sepsis syndrome, a condition affecting around half of sepsis survivors. It can leave people with depression, loss of self-esteem, debilitating muscle or joint pain and hallucinations.

“About 10 weeks after being in hospital, everything hit me like a tonne of bricks,” he said. “I’d come off the medication but that was when the real battle began.

“Post sepsis syndrome was an absolute nightmare and the worst thing was that no-one had warned me what was to come.”

His love for wife Grace and their two sons, Noah, 7, and four-year-old Jude helps Shaun find the strength to continue his recovery and he rejoined Leeds Rhinos on loan in June.

He missed Noah’s seventh birthday because he was admitted to hospital just three days before on September 27 and then spent days in quarantine so this year’s celebration will be extra special.

He understands how close those who love him came to losing him and he’s determined to return to full health.

“I’m not afraid or ashamed to admit I’m still not 100 per cent,” he said. “It’s just an on-going process but I know I’m getting better.

“In the beginning, I was lucky to get a couple of good hours because every day was a bad day. Then it was one good day in a week. Now, I maybe have a tough day every couple of weeks but I know what it’s about now.

“I can talk to my wife and we know it’s all part of the healing process and something I have to go through.”

Hull’s A&E department sees at least 50 patients with sepsis every month while other people already in hospital with other illnesses and injuries can also develop sepsis.

Since the trust introduced its sepsis team in 2015 as part of a national initiative to drive up survival rates, around 90 per cent of patients brought to A&E with signs of severe infection are now screened for sepsis.

Around 80 per cent of those diagnosed with sepsis receive life-saving antibiotics within an hour.

Donna Gotts, Clinical Nurse Specialist in Sepsis at Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital, said: “We are so grateful to Shaun for the work he is doing to help us spread the message.

“We need all health professionals to think sepsis and to be ready to take swift action so we can save more lives.

“In Hull, we’ve got a really good pathway which begins with Yorkshire Ambulance Service staff who can start the escalation pathway, alerting our Emergency Department so they’re ready for the patient arriving.

“This means that we can start the treatment for sepsis quickly. “

SIGNS OF SEPSIS

If your child is under five, call 999 or head straight for A&E if they have any of these symptoms – looks mottled or bluish, is very lethargic or difficult to wake, feels abnormally cold to the touch, is breathing very fast, has a fit or convulsion, has a rash that does not fade when pressed.

In older children or adults, early symptoms of sepsis may include a high temperature or low body temperature, chills and shivering, a fast heartbeat, fast breathing.

Symptoms of severe sepsis include feeling dizzy or faint, confusion or disorientation, diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting, slurred speech, severe muscle pain, severe breathlessness, less urine production than normal, cold, clammy and pale or mottled skin and loss of consciousness.

More than 140 nurses are due to start at Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital this month as part of a plan to address the national shortage of nurses.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has recruited 142 newly qualified nurses from the University of Hull and universities further afield as part of its hugely successful Remarkable People campaign.

Many of the new nurses were offered posts during their training, on condition of passing their final exams, in a radical approach by the trust to recruit as much of the locally-grown health care talent as possible.

Chief Nurse Beverley Geary

Chief Nurse Beverley Geary said: “Not only are we able to offer students jobs upon qualification, we can also support them throughout their training and time at university so they are more likely to pass their exams with flying colours.

“That means that when they arrive at the hospital, they are already part of the ‘HUTH family’ and we will continue to mentor them throughout the early stages of their careers to ensure they can achieve their full potential.”

The trust, in line with other hospitals around the country, has experienced a shortfall in nurses in recent years and the new recruits will fill the 143 vacancies for nurses.

In addition to the newly qualified staff, the trust has also recruited 60 nurses from the Philippines in the last two years with just two leaving thanks to a concerted effort to welcome the new staff to the trust and help them settle in the city as well as in their jobs.

A further 10 nurses will be arriving from the Philippines later this month and will work in the hospital’s theatres and endoscopy department to ease the pressure in particular areas affected by staff shortages.

The trust has also launched its “Once A Nurse…Always a Nurse” advertising campaign aimed at international staff now working at Hull Royal and Castle Hill although not in nursing roles. So far, seven members of staff have been supported to obtain the qualifications they require to attain registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Ms Geary said: “We have to come up with innovative ways of bringing nurses into or back into nursing and we’ve been really successful in what we’ve done so far.

“Creative thinking is required to tackle the nursing shortfalls experience by hospitals all over the country. We have to do all we can to showcase the fantastic career opportunities we have here for people are lucky enough to live and work in the wonderful, vibrant city of Hull.”

Staff in the new infectious diseases ward at Castle Hill Hospital have been  undergoing training to protect themselves from highly infectious diseases including Ebola.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has trained 15 nurses and health care professionals on Ward 7 to help patients with suspected haemorrhagic illnesses such as Ebola, dengue fever and yellow fever.

Matthew Shipley joined the trust as Senior Infection Prevention and Control Nurse six months ago after working for the British Army, training defence forces in Sierra Leone to deal with suspected cases of Ebola during the height of the outbreak in 2015.

Ward 7 opened last year

Over the past few weeks, Matthew has been training staff on Ward 7 on how to “don” and “doff” – put on and take off – specialist protective gear to ensure they are not at risk of contracting any infectious illness from patients.

He said: “We have yet to see a case of Ebola or any other haemorrhagic illness and it is highly unlikely that we ever will. However, we have to ensure we know how to respond if anyone comes into hospital with signs.

“These are highly infectious illnesses and it is crucial our staff are aware of the correct procedures for using personal protective equipment (PPE) so they can keep themselves safe while continuing to provide an excellent standard of care.”

More than 1,676 have died in the most recent outbreak of Ebola following the epidemic between 2014 and 2016 which claimed the lives of more than 11,300 people.

More than 111,000 people, many of them relatives or health professionals who cared for people with Ebola, have received the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine in an attempt to halt the spread of the epidemic.

Chief Executive Chris Long cutting the ribbon to open the new ward

Hull is one of the UK’s designated centres for treating patients with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) and for the assessment of possible haemorrhagic illnesses.

Ward 7 opened last year with 12 specialist rooms treating patients with these highly contagious viruses and drug-resistant infections.

Five rooms are “negative pressure” isolation facilities with lobbies and en-suite showers, including one designed to care for vulnerable adults. Special ventilation systems prevent contaminated air escaping to other parts of the ward.

One of the rooms has been designed to treat patients with Ebola or similar conditions who are awaiting transfer to specialist treatment centres in London or Newcastle.

The first room of its kind in the Humber region, the high-level isolation room has a dirty/clean route where staff are able to take personal protection equipment on and off.

Some of the staff working on the Infectious Diseases ward with Chief Executive Chris Long (second from left) and Duncan Taylor, Director of Estates, Facilities and Development (fifth from left)

Although no patients have yet been diagnosed with Ebola since the unit opened, one patient was suspected of having the illness when they developed a fever after travelling in an area affected by the outbreak.

They were cared for in the specialist room while awaiting transfer to one of the specialist centres before further tests showed they had malaria rather than Ebola.

People are being urged to consider alternative services before attending Hull’s Emergency Department this weekend after a large spike in attendances after dark.

As the hospital prepares for a busy weekend, Chief Operating Officer Teresa Cope made a direct appeal to people to keep away from Hull Royal Infirmary over the weekend unless they have a serious or life-threatening illness or injury.

She said: “We continue to see high numbers of people attending the ED and large proportion of patients could have been seen in other services.

“At midnight on Thursday, we had 100 people in our Emergency Department with 120 patients arriving between 7pm and 11pm when all the Urgent Treatment Centres at Bransholme, Beverley, Bridlington and Goole are open.”

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust was already coping with an usually high level of bed occupancy this week after an influx of very sick people who needed to be in hospital and an increased number of patients waiting for discharge to other services in the community.

However, huge numbers also turned up at the Emergency Department when they should have gone to the GP walk-in service at Wilberforce Health Centre in Story Street, used their local pharmacy or visited an Urgent Treatment Centre.

If you live in Hull, visit www.hullccg.nhs.uk/other-services-2/local-services-and-your-health/find-local-services/ find out where you can go to be seen quickly.

You can visit http://www.eastridingofyorkshireccg.nhs.uk/choose-well/ to find the alternatives to A&E if you live in the East Riding.

If you are not sure where you should go for medical attention, call NHS 111.

One of the trust’s best-loved porters is hanging up his uniform after almost 50 years.

Denis Carter, 66, started working for the NHS at De La Pole Hospital as a fresh-faced boy of 18.

This afternoon, he’ll finish his last eleven and a half hour shift at the Queen’s Centre, clocking up almost 46 years’ service to patients.

Looking back over his long career, Denis said: “I have to go and I’m ready to go.

“But walking out that back door for the last time will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Denis Carter, seated, with (left to right) John Cunningham, John Burley, Andy Fisher, Dave Houghton and Phillip Morton

Denis was born in Chesterfield but moved to Hull when he was four. He worked in Hull’s fishing industry gutting fish after he left school before applying for a job in hospital stores at De La Pole.

However, the job had gone and he was offered a porter’s job instead.

“I hadn’t even thought about it,” he laughed. “I just thought ‘Wow. Ok.’”

It was a steep learning curve for the teenage Denis, given the task of moving patients who had died to the mortuary.

“It was hard at first and I had nightmares but I soon got used to it,” he said. “I moved 36 bodies in a week once.”

He loved his job at the hospital, known to him as ‘Delly’ and a place where everyone knew everyone else, from the patients to the senior bosses and everyone in between.

With the re-organisation of the NHS, Denis moved to Castle Hill Hospital in 1988 working as a nightshift supervisor in the switchboard control room.

He was then headhunted as a portering supervisor before he worked for three years transporting staff to and from Castle Hill on a half-hourly shuttle service. He then returned to Castle Hill as a portering supervisor and has spent the last 18 months at the Queen’s Centre.

Today, patients come over to him to shake his hand, knowing it is his final week.

“The best part of my job has been looking after patients and helping their families.

“They don’t want to be here, they go through hell and back. They need medicine, of course, but they also need kindness.

“And that’s what I see my job as, to make them smile.”

Not many patients greeted by his beaming smile will know the heartache Denis has endured in his own life. He cared for his mother for 25 years, upholding her final wish to die at home. But he also watched his own grandson Daniel, known throughout Hull as ‘Bransholme’s superhero’, die of cancer after a brave fight when he was just seven years old, days before Christmas.

Tears fill Denis’s eyes, lost in his grief. “He was a hell of a fighter and he was chosen by Hull’s mayor to switch on the Christmas lights,” he said softly.

“They asked if I wanted to move after Daniel died but I wanted to stay here.

“I think that’s why I can relate to patients. I’ve been in their shoes. I know what it feels like.”

His friends and colleagues at work have seen him through dark times. But he’s also shared plenty of happy times with them too – like the time he took a day off work and came back married to wife Gaye.

Denis and Gaye are planning to move to Sigglesthorne to enjoy his retirement near the coast, just waiting for their bungalow to be completed.

“All that has happened to me has made me a better person,” he said. “I like to think I’m a caring person – you couldn’t do this job if you weren’t.

“I’ve met thousands of thousands of patients over the years and sometimes, I’ve gone home and cried for them because it can get to you.

“Just the other week there, I lost one of mine. I’d seen them at the end of my shift and when I went to check on them the next day, they had died an hour or so earlier. That hit me hard.

“But I’ve never regretted what I’ve done, not for a single minute. I could have left this job a long tme ago but I didn’t want to.

“I look back and I think of the patients and the people I’ve worked with who have helped me and I can’t thank them enough.”

Staff will gather this afternoon to bid a fond farewell to Denis at the end of his shift.

Ann Mason, Head of Facilities, said: “Denis has been a wonderful asset to the trust and he will be sorely missed, not just by us but by the patients who have grown to love him for the care and compassion he has shown them every day of his working life.

“We thank him for his decades of devotion and wish him all the best for a long and happy retirement.”

Hospital staff will turn Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill pink next week to highlight a change in the law about organ donation.

Catering and mailroom staff at Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital will wear bright pink “Yes, I Donate” t-shirts to mark National Organ Donation Week from Monday, September 2 to Sunday, September 8.

The garden in front of Hull Royal Infirmary will be lit up pink throughout the week and the Organ Donation flag will flutter from the flagpole outside the tower block.

Specialist Organ Donation Nurse Fay Turner said: “The law will change next year, meaning everyone will be presumed to have consented to organ donation in the event of their death unless they opt out.

“We want to make sure people know about the change and National Organ Donation Week is a great time to spread the word.

“The ‘opt out’ system is a fantastic step forward in organ donation, meaning more lives could be saved and fewer people will die waiting for a transplant.”

Staff from the Organ Donation Team at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust will also be at St Stephen’s shopping mall on Tuesday, September 3, from 11am to 3pm to encourage people to talk about organ donation.

Members of the team will be able to answer any questions on the forthcoming change to organ donation legislation, due to come into force next Spring.

According to NHS Blood and Transplant figures, 1,600 people donated their organs after they died last year, saving or improving the lives of 3,941 recipients.

However, over the same year, 400 people died waiting for a transplant and a further 777 became so ill they had to be removed from the list, with many dying soon afterwards.

At the moment, more than 6.000 people are waiting for the call to say a donor has been found, a call which could mean the difference between them living long enough to become teenagers or adults, see their children grow up, attend the wedding of their son or daughter or spend precious extra years with their grandchildren.

In Hull, 12 families consented to the use of the organs following the death of a loved one, with 18 transplants undertaken.

Hospital bosses are appealing to the public to use urgent treatment centres and pharmacies as Hull’s A&E comes under unseasonable pressure.

Frontline staff at Hull Royal Infirmary are working round-the-clock to help hundreds of seriously ill people arriving at the Emergency Department.

Around 400 people have been turning up at ED every day this month, with almost 500 attending on some days.

Now, Chief Operating Officer Teresa Cope is warning people are facing long waits for treatment if they come to Hull Royal’s Emergency Department when they are not facing a serious or life-threatening illness or injury.

She said: “We have been seeing increasingly high numbers of very seriously ill people who need to come to Hull Royal Infirmary for our help.

“However, we are still having to deal with people who are coming to hospital when they could have been seen much more quickly if they had gone to the Urgent Treatment Centres in Bransholme, Goole, Beverley or Bridlington.

“We need people to stop and think and ask themselves if they really need to come to hospital. Our staff need to be here for the seriously ill and injured patients whose lives may be in danger and coming here with minor injuries and illnesses can put lives at risk.”

As well as the Urgent Treatment Centres, people can also call NHS111, use their local pharmacist or visit the GP walk-in service at Wilberforce Health Centre in Story Street.

If you live in Hull, visit www.hullccg.nhs.uk/other-services-2/local-services-and-your-health/find-local-services/ find out where you can go to be seen quickly.

You can visit http://www.eastridingofyorkshireccg.nhs.uk/choose-well/ to find the alternatives to A&E if you live in the East Riding.

The first helicopter to land on a new £500,000 helipad in Hull touched down on Friday.

A five person crew from Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance was the first to fly in and step foot on the newly completed helipad to the rear of Hull Royal Infirmary.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has undertaken a major construction project so patients seriously hurt in accidents across East and North Yorkshire and parts of Lincolnshire can be flown into the hospital grounds, the Major Trauma Centre (MTC) for the area.

Following demolition of the old Haughton Building to the rear of the hospital and many months of planning, clearing work and development, the helipad construction work was finally signed off week.

And within minutes of getting the ‘thumbs up’, the opportunity for the first test landing arose as Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance had just flown a patient in to the existing helipad, on the opposite side of Argyle Street, and were awaiting a call to their next job.

Intensive Care Consultant Dr Tom Cowlam, the trust’s clinical lead for the MTC, said:

“The new helipad looks very impressive. The fact that we were able to complete the first test landing so quickly after construction was completed was down to pure chance, but now that we’ve seen the first helicopter land, we’re looking forward to being able to complete all of the tests with our partners and bring the helipad into permanent use.”

The helipad, situated behind Hull Royal Infirmary’s £12m Emergency Department, has been funded entirely by the HELP Appeal.

Robert Bertram, Chief Executive of the HELP Appeal said:

“Everyone is aware of the vital roles that hospitals and air ambulances play in treating a critically ill patient, but having a helipad beside the Emergency Department (ED) can play a significant part in saving vital minutes when transporting a patient to the expert care they need to save their lives.

“As the only charity in the country funding life-saving helipads we are pleased to be able to cover the entire cost of the helipad. We know the difference having a ground level helipad right outside ED would make.

“With the support of the air ambulances and the excellent emergency care team at Hull Royal Infirmary– this incredible mix of helicopters, helipad and hospital medical staff – will make a huge difference to those people who may urgently need life-saving treatment.”

Test flights will continue over the next few weeks until all 15 agencies who regularly fly patients in to Hull Royal Infirmary, including Yorkshire Air Ambulance, the Search & Rescue helicopter, and the Embrace children’s air ambulance have all completed at least one landing.

Patients are currently flown to the helipad on the other side of the hospital car park at Anlaby Road and have to be transferred to Hull Royal in an ambulance. Once all agencies have been able to test land successfully, the new helipad will be opened up for regular use and the current one decommissioned.

Dr Cowlam continues:

“The new helipad will shorten the journey by a quarter of an hour and remove the need for the patient to be transferred in a second ambulance to the Emergency Department.

“It will make the transfer quicker and more seamless for the trauma patient.

“When you have a really poorly person, this might be the difference between life and death because this could be the time when they are having surgery or a massive blood transfusion to save them.”

Trust Chief Executive Chris Long said: “We are deeply grateful to the HELP Appeal for its £500,000 donation, which has allowed us to construct the helipad directly behind our Emergency Department.

“There is no doubt that having a helipad so close to our highly skilled major trauma team means we will be able to save more lives in situations where every second counts.”

Duncan Taylor, Director of Estates, Facilities and Development, said the trust funded the demolition of the Haughton building among others and clearance of the site before main contractor Unico Construction could begin work on the helipad.

Measuring 30 metres by 30 metres, 900 tonnes of concrete were brought onto the hospital site, over the course of one day in September.

An access road for fire engines and service vehicles has been built alongside a second pedestrian route where patients will be carried out of the air ambulance and rushed into the emergency department.

Special double fences have been erected around the helipad as “baffles” to reduce noise pollution and the majority of the site will be turfed with pinned grass covered with mesh overlay to act as a “soakaway” to remove water from the helipad.

Lights have been imported from Holland to be set into the concrete, now covered in specialist paint.

Hull is one of the country’s 27 Major Trauma Centres (MTCs), credited with saving an additional 1,600 people’s lives since they were established in 2012.

Lincs and Nott Air Ambulance use the Hull helipad most often, with Yorkshire Air Ambulance and Derbyshire, Leicester and Rutland Air Ambulance also flying casualties to the city.

The Search and Rescue helicopter, based at Humberside Airport, also lands in Hull with people winched off mountains or those injured on oil rigs or out at sea.

The helipad will also be used by the Children’s Air Ambulance, which can fly specialist medical teams into Hull to treat seriously ill children as well as fly children from here to hospital with specialist paediatric services.

To support the HELP Appeal please call the donation helpline on 0800 389 8999 or text HPAD22 plus the amount and send to 70070.