Ms Orlaith Staunton:

I am not a medical professional but it does obviously vary from case to case, depending on how fast the infection is passing through one's body and how fast the toxins are moving. In our case, by the time Rory got antibiotics, they did act to kill the infection, but the toxins had gone ahead by then. This meant there was no coming back and he was going to die. This is generally what happens. Patients go into septic shock, and it is very hard to come back again.

As the Deputy said about the eight-year-old, it almost becomes the responsibility of the parent to identify that it is sepsis and to argue with the doctors that this is what it could be. We want to stop this happening. We want to reach a situation where, when we know our children are sick and we get them to a doctor or a hospital, the doctors and other medical professionals are waiting there, querying whether the symptoms could be caused by sepsis, and, if it is the case, they will know what to do. This is what is in place in New York.