Communiqué 8: National Sepsis Program Oversight Group – April 2025

National Sepsis Program Oversight Group

The Oversight Group is chaired by Conjoint Professor Carolyn Hullick, Chief Medical Officer at the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (the Commission).

The Commission provided an overview of a project Cultural Safety Charter. Developed with the support of Indigenous Professional Service Management Consultants, the Charter emphasises key practice elements for the Commission and its partners during project planning and implementation. This includes:

• understanding what we mean by cultural safety
• ways to create cultural safety
• the impact of mismatched power and privilege
• cultural load and lateral violence risk for First Nations Peoples involved in the project
• the importance of strengths based (rather than deficit based) language and thinking.

Members discussed how the sepsis program and lived experiences of Sepsis Australia members might inform the Commission’s broader work and academic research about learning from critical incidents in health care. Members discussed existing systems for incident management; acknowledging both the importance of open disclosure and the complexities associated with critical incident data management. Members supported the Commission’s work to develop a clinical governance framework and expressed interest in further participation.

Members reviewed a draft survey about sepsis in pre-registration curricula and recommended minor amendments and additional questions. 

The Commission provided updates on several concurrent projects. Members noted:

• the imminent launch of the new online education bundle
• progression of the model of care for sepsis coordination and post sepsis. Members requested that care transitions and medicines safety be included in a model illustration
• Callida Consulting has been engaged to conduct a thematic gaps analysis to inform the development of a national sepsis data strategic plan. A Technical Advisory Group, with members from each jurisdiction will support this work. 

Professor Simon Finfer provided an overview of the 2025 World Sepsis Congress, sharing insights from presentations from the UK, Switzerland, Thailand and Brazil. Members noted that 15 session recordings are available. 

Next steps 

The Oversight Group will continue to monitor the progress of projects and provide feedback to the Commission and contracted suppliers to strengthen implementation and outcomes. 

Enquiries

If you would like to be added to the distribution list for this communiqué, please email sepsis@safetyandquality.gov.au.