Jason Watkins and Clara Francis – the New Journal took this photo after his Bafta award

A COUPLE has been campaigning to get all NHS staff “clued up” about sepsis warning signs for more than decade after their two-year-old daughter died after being sent home from hospital.

Fashion designer Clara Francis and her husband the Bafta-winning actor Jason Watkins, who live in Kentish Town, say they have encountered a series of “carbon copy stories” about preventable deaths since their own tragedy in 2011.

Like tens of thousands of others in this country every year their daughter Maude died from sepsis.

She had become floppy and had difficulty breathing the day before and was taken to hospital, but the family was told it was the common children’s condition “croup” and told to go home.

Ms Francis told the New Journal: “We actually made a training video, telling our story, that has been rolled out in many NHS trust’s across the country.

“One of the problems is that each NHS trust has a very different training programme for recognising and diagnosing sepsis. Some extremely thorough and some seriously lacking.

“So from what I can make out it’s often a postcode lottery as to who lives and dies. If you look at the stats there are some hospital trusts that are really excellent at training their staff to spot it.”

SEE ALSO LITTLE DANIEL’S PARENTS WERE SENT AWAY FROM A&E WITH CALPOL… HOURS LATER HE HAD DIED FROM SEPSIS

“The other problem with diagnosing sepsis is it’s often very insidious and hard to spot. That is not to say it can’t be spotted of course but it’s a very complex syndrome and many factors have to be taken into consideration – this is why doctors and nurses need to be more clued up as to what they’re looking for.”

Maude died from sepsis in 2011

Just last month Ms Francis and Mr Watkins made a documentary, still on the ITV website to watch, looking at practical ways of helping hospital staff spot sepsis and also offering help to bereaved parents.

They spoke to experts at King’s College Hospital which has a unit that trains other staff on how to spot the “subtle” signs of sepsis.

At the unit, they see how warning signs include blood pressure readings failing to take and also the cannula failing to fit, with it popping out unexpectedly. But the training offered at the unit is not available to all NHS staff.

Ms Francis said: “There need to be more units like this but obviously there is no money or from what I’ve seen no appetite to build them.”

Daniel Klosi

She said this week she felt “heartbroken” for the family of Daniel Klosi, a four-year-old boy also from Kentish Town who died earlier this month, adding: “I often get messages from many parents and nurses, never doctors funnily enough, telling me that they are more aware of sepsis thanks to the work Jason and I and of course the UK Sepsis Trust have done in raising awareness.

“Often they are messages of thanks as their child was diagnosed with sepsis early and thankfully survived. My instinct is diagnoses is better than it was 12 years ago, but nowhere near enough has been done – it’s all about training and there is so much more to do.”

In the ITV documentary – Jason & Clara in Memory of Maudie, Ms Francis talks about therapy and support groups available to bereaved parents, including the SLOW group that she runs, and to show how there “is hope for families of lost children”.

The UK Sepsis Trust charity is campaigning for “political change” and to raise awareness about the condition that it says kills 48,000 people a year.