Daily Mail - 19.08.2019

Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019 Page 21

STEPPING out during a holiday break

in the Hamptons, Sir Paul McCartney

found an innovative way to curry

favour with the locals.

He wore his civic pride on his feet

with a pair of stars and stripes san-

dals as he strolled to a guitar

shop in the upmarket area of New

York state.

The 77-year-old former Beatle also

wore distinctive forest-print board

shorts, a baseball cap and blue

reflective sunglasses. He completed

the ensemble with a white T-shirt.

Sir Paul owns a secluded mansion

in the village of Amagansett. The

house, hidden in dense woodland, is

not far from his daughter Stella’s

£1.2million Hamptons beach house,

while other neighbours include

Gwyneth Paltrow and her mother,

the actress Blythe Danner. Sir Paul is

likely enjoying some downtime

after finishing a sell-out tour in July,

on which he played 39 concerts

around the world.

Why ‘threatened’ men don’t believe Me Too victims

A TEXT message warning sys-

tem which alerts doctors to

cases of sepsis has saved hun-

dreds of lives.

NHS hospitals in Cambridge,

Liverpool and Berkshire have

developed similar technology

which tracks key indicators of a

patient’s condition.

Information such as breathing rate

and pulse is constantly analysed by

computer software – and if the indi-

cators suggest a patient might be

developing sepsis, an electronic mes-

sage is sent to doctors.

The introduction of the alert sys-

tem was unveiled a year ago on the

front page of the Daily Mail, as part

of our ‘End the Sepsis Scandal’

campaign. And already the technol-

ogy has had an impact, the hospi-

tals have revealed. Now, other trusts

are being encouraged to adopt the

tools used in the pilots to drive down

sepsis rates.

In Liverpool, the hospital’s digital

system, which brings lab results and

patient observations into one place

comes.’ Sepsis is the leading cause of

avoidable death in the UK, affecting

an estimated 260,000 people a year

and killing at least 44,000.

It occurs when the body over-reacts

to an everyday infection or virus – such

as a skin infection, chest infection,

pneumonia or flu.

Every 30-minute delay in treating a

patient with sepsis increases the risk

of death by 7 per cent. Yet, awareness

of the condition is poor, meaning it is

often mistaken for more mild condi-

tions. Experts say the new technology

• part of a major nationwide push to
  tackle sepsis – enables doctors to rap-
  idly diagnose and treat the condition.
  Celia Ingham Clark, NHS England’s
  medical director for clinical effective-
  ness, said: ‘With the help of innova-
  tive digital tools, the NHS is saving
  more lives by getting even better at
  identifying and treating sepsis.’
  The Mail launched its sepsis cam-
  paign in January 2016 to raise aware-
  ness of symptoms among patients
  and staff. The campaign was trig-
  gered by revelations of the death of

William Mead, who died at the age of

12 months in 2014 after a catalogue of

errors, misdiagnoses and missed

opportunities by doctors and NHS

helpline staff.

Dr Ron Daniels, chief executive of

the UK Sepsis Trust, said: ‘Any kind

of technology which assists clinicians

in making prompt decisions when the

warning signs of sepsis are detected

should be embraced; with every hour

that passes before the right antibiot-

ics are administered the risk of death

increases. The UK Sepsis Trust wel-

comes these initiatives, especially at

such a time when the national spot-

light is on the swift diagnosis and

treatment of sepsis.

‘These innovations involve technol-

ogy that uses existing recognition

strategies for sepsis. In the coming

years, however, we expect that our

improved understanding of the con-

dition, combined with the embracing

of evermore advancing technology,

will ensure that we deliver the very

best care to the patients who need it

most urgently.’

Back in the US of A, it’s Macca

(with stars and stripes sandals)

By Ben Spencer

Medical Correspondent

to help staff diagnose and treat sus-

pected sepsis, has saved an estimated

200 lives.

In Cambridge, the ‘alert and action’

system has saved at least 64 lives in

the past year. And in Berkshire,

screening for sepsis on admission has

increased from 20 per cent to 90 per

cent – allowing doctors to spot more

cases sooner.

Dr Paul Fitzsimmons, from The

Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen Uni-

versity Hospitals NHS Trust, said:

‘We have seen a major impact on sep-

sis care with lives saved. In some

cases, it would have been impossible

to make a diagnosis of sepsis without

the help of our digital system.’

And Dr Afzal Chaudhry, from Cam-

bridge University Hospitals NHS

Foundation Trust, said: ‘[This] is an

excellent example of how much of a

difference digital technology can

make to patient safety, care and out-

American

sole: His

sandals

By Alisha Rouse

Showbusiness Correspondent

By Ben Spencer

Norwegian wood? Sir Paul’s shorts adorned with trees

MEN are more likely than women to

blame victims of sexual harassment for

their assault, research suggests.

Experts found in cases of ‘clear-cut’ sexual

harassment that men are more likely than

women to give the benefit of the doubt to

the male perpetrator.

Men will more often believe allegations of

sexual harassment, such as those brought

forward in the wake of the Me Too move-

ment, are down to a ‘misunderstanding’,

that a female victim ‘provoked’ her abuser

or that the woman has made the story up.

The research, led by the University of Exe-

ter, looked at the responses of 100 students

asked to comment on a scenario in which a

man harassed a female student over a pro-

longed period. The researchers, writing in

the Psychology of Women Quarterly, said:

‘Accusations of... a man’s sexual harassment

of a woman may pose a threat to men’s sense

of their gender group as moral.

‘To reduce this threat, men may afford

male perpetrators the benefit of the doubt

and interpret events in a way that is biased

towards that perpetrator’s perspective.

‘Men may believe, for example, that the

male perpetrator did not mean to cause

harm, that what occurred was based on a

misunderstanding.’

The researchers, including experts from

the University of Bath and the University of

Queensland in Australia, said a fear of being

victim blamed contributes to low rates of

sexual harassment cases being brought for-

ward. They said challenging the myth that

women provoke harassment from men

could help more victims to come forward.

Hundreds

of sepsis

deaths cut

by text alert

Victory for Mail as tech helps

doctors spot illness sooner

END THE SEPSIS

SCANDAL