Sepsis guides and tools for health professionals
Resources – including guidance and tools – designed to support the early recognition and treatment of sepsis in hospital emergency departments, wards, high dependency units and intensive care units.
Clinical Guide to Sepsis Management in New Zealand
This clinical guide covers the recognition, diagnosis and early management of sepsis. It is for health care professionals working in primary, secondary and tertiary care. People who have experienced sepsis and their family/whānau can use it as a care standard. This guide:
- is to help professionals and patients make decisions about the most appropriate treatment and care for specific clinical circumstances
- can be used to develop standards to assess the clinical practice of individual health professionals and organisations
- can support the education and training of health professionals and others
- can improve communication between patients and health professionals.
Clinical governance for sepsis
Raise the Flag: Sepsis quality improvement: Clinical governance for sepsis supports the effective implementation and long-term sustainability of the national sepsis improvement package. It includes a summary of the clinical governance framework to help health care professionals deliver and embed the national sepsis pathway.
National sepsis pathways for treating adult, paediatric and maternity patients
- screen patients for sepsis and identify the level of risk
- treat patients identified as having a high-risk of sepsis.
The sepsis pathways are endorsed by Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora.
Adult pathway
Use this pathway for patients who are not pregnant and 12 years or older.
Adult sepsis pathway (PDF 266KB)
Paediatric pathway
Use this pathway for children aged from 29 days to under 12 years. Vital sign parameters are aligned with age-appropriate ranges.
Paediatric sepsis pathway (PDF 268KB)
Maternity pathway
Use this pathway for pregnant or postpartum patients up to six weeks post-delivery. The pathway gives special consideration to physiological changes in pregnancy.
Maternal sepsis pathway (PDF 267KB)
Hypoperfusion pathway
Use for any adult or young person 12 years and older along with the adult or maternal sepsis pathway.
Hypoperfusion sepsis pathway (PDF 187KB)
National Sepsis Pathway User Guide
The national sepsis pathway user guide explains how to complete and use the national sepsis pathway across a range of clinical settings.
Raise the Flag: National Sepsis Pathway User Guide (PDF 1.5MB)
Raise the Flag: National Sepsis Pathway User Guide (DOCX 3.8MB)
Reporting and measuring progress
Raise the Flag: Sepsis quality improvement: measurement guide provides guidance to support hospitals and clinical teams conduct audits, measure improvement in processes, sustain improvements and identify opportunities for ongoing quality improvement. This guide aims to standardise sepsis definitions and data collection processes, enabling consistent nationwide reporting of sepsis-related measures.
Blood culture diagnostic stewardship for adults: take care and take two
Blood cultures are essential for the diagnosis and management of sepsis and severe infections. This document explains diagnostic stewardship principles for taking blood cultures.
Blood culture diagnostic stewardship for adults: take care and take two (nznm.org.nz)
Background information
Literature scoping review by Callan Attwell
In 2023, we contracted medical researcher Callan Attwell to investigate national and international efforts in the field of quality improvement (QI) to reduce the incidence and harm associated with sepsis across different cohort groupings and settings. This review helped us understand the efficacy of different approaches and informed our approach for the QI initiative.
HQSC Sepsis Quality Improvement Scoping Review 2023 (PDF 1 MB)
Sepsis adverse event thematic analysis
An analysis of the sepsis-related adverse events (SAC 1 and SAC 2) reported to Health Quality & Safety Commission Te Tāhū Hauora over the five years from 2017 to 2022 was completed by our Improved Service Delivery team. This analysis enabled us to understand the magnitude of significant harm related to sepsis in New Zealand hospitals.
Sepsis scoping summary report
This paper outlines the findings from the preliminary scoping exercise including opportunities for improvement, and the benefits of doing a sepsis quality improvement programme.
Sepsis quality improvement programme scoping summary (PDF 1.2MB)
Stocktake of sepsis management in New Zealand
The Health Quality & Safety Commission worked with Synergia to undertake a stocktake of the current management of sepsis in Aotearoa New Zealand.
This report, published in August 2022, sets out the findings of the stocktake.
Stocktake of sepsis management in Aotearoa New Zealand (PDF 1.5 MB)
Published: 9 Sep 2025
Modified: 11 Sep 2025
