Events
Event Information
Remote Event
Tue 06-Oct-2026, Microsoft Teams
The session will explore how early sepsis may be distinguished from less serious presentations, and how observations, NEWS scores, blood results, clinical notes, antibiotics, fluids, senior review and transfer decisions may inform breach of duty.
You will gain a clearer understanding of how causation is approached in sepsis claims, including how experts consider whether earlier intervention would probably have changed the patient’s deterioration, outcome or prognosis.
Sepsis negligence claims often turn on the earliest stages of hospital admission: whether sepsis should have been recognised, whether the patient was escalated appropriately, and whether deterioration was monitored and acted upon in time.
You will see how acute medical evidence is used to assess recognition, escalation and missed opportunities for intervention during the first 24–72 hours of admission, where clinical decisions are often time-critical and later scrutinised in detail.
Crucially, the session will highlight where these claims are most vulnerable: gaps in the chronology, unclear escalation pathways, incomplete monitoring, delayed treatment, and disputed links between delay and outcome.
This session will help you to:
- Understand how early sepsis may present in acute care and why it can be difficult to distinguish from less serious illness
- Identify key records and clinical markers relevant to recognition, monitoring, escalation and deterioration
- Assess whether delays in review, investigation, antibiotics, fluids or senior input may support breach arguments
- Analyse missed opportunities for intervention and how they affect causation
- Interpret acute medical evidence within the first 24-72 hours of admission
- Evaluate how deterioration, prognosis and outcome feed into liability and quantum
About the Speaker
Dr Elora Mukherjee
Consultant in General and Acute Medicine
Dr Elora Mukherjee is an experienced medico-legal expert who has been providing expert opinion in Clinical Negligence and Personal Injury claims since 2009. She prepares reports addressing screening, breach of duty, causation, condition and prognosis, and currently undertakes approximately 40 medico-legal reports per year. Her medico-legal practice is informed by her clinical role as a Consultant in Acute Medicine and Ambulatory Care at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust, where she works with patients during the first 72 hours of admission. This experience is particularly relevant to sepsis claims, where recognition, escalation, monitoring and intervention in the early admission period are often central to breach and causation.