Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection injures its own tissues. Any type of infection —bacterial, viral or fungal — can lead to sepsis, with potentially devastating results.

If not recognised and treated promptly sepsis can result in avoidable death and disability. Sepsis can affect previously healthy people, and has profound impacts on individuals, their families, and the healthcare system. Many sepsis survivors endure substantial morbidity, including amputations, irreversible functional disabilities, persistent symptomatic organ dysfunction, and psychological trauma, often leading to frequent re-hospitalisations.

The aim of PSPs is to bring patients, carers and clinicians together to jointly identify priorities for research. The James Lind Alliance's current portfolio of PSPs is on the JLA website. JLA PSPs are characterised by following an evidence-based method set out in the JLA Guidebook and are facilitated by one of a small team of approved JLA Advisers.

PSPs' objectives are to:

• bring patients, carers and clinicians together to identify uncertainties or unanswered questions for specific health issues

• agree by consensus a prioritised 'Top 10' list of those uncertainties for research

• publicise the methods and results of the PSP

• draw the results to the attention of research funders, independently of the JLA.

Advocates of, and individuals from, the following groups are eligible to take part in a PSP:

• people with experience of the health area in question

• carers and families of those affected

• health and social care professionals working with patients and carers in the health area in question.

The James Lind Alliance (JLA) is a non-profit making initiative which is funded by the UK’s National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). It provides a “tried-and-tested”, fair and rigorous process to help patients, carers and clinicians work together to agree which are the most important treatment uncertainties affecting their particular interest (in this case sepsis), in order to influence the prioritisation of future research in that area.

• People who have had sepsis in their childhood or adolescent years 

• Carers of people who have had sepsis in their childhood or adolescent years (families, partners, friends etc.) 

• Health care professionals involved in the care/treatment of patients with sepsis in their childhood or adolescent years

Please note: Survey respondents must be over 18 .

It should take about 5–10 minutes to complete.

Your question(s) will be gathered together and examined with questions we receive from everyone else who takes part in this survey.

The questions that haven’t already been answered by research will be published. 

They will go through a process of prioritisation which you can also be involved in if you like.

This will result in a list of research topics which we will use to influence future research priorities and decisions.

We’d love your help!

You can simply forward the website link: https://passport-platform.org

If your organisation would like to become a partner please contact hello@passport-platform.org

There will be two surveys.

Survey 1 offers sepsis patients, carers and healthcare professionals the chance to participate in a survey aimed at gathering their questions and concerns about sepsis. This input will help us identify the most common unanswered research questions.

Once we collect the questions, we will review them against existing published research to determine which have already been addressed.

From here we conduct Survey 2 to help prioritise the summary questions.

Ultimately, we will publish a final list of the Top 10 unanswered research questions, encouraging researchers and funding bodies to focus on the most urgent and relevant needs of those affected by sepsis.

Parent representative

Kimberley is a mother of 2. Her daughter was 2 years old when she became acutely unwell with group strep A sepsis and went into multi organ failure following an illness with influenza A and RSV which lead to a pleural effusion.  Thankfully her daughter survived however her daughter still has ongoing issues which potentially might be lifelong.

This experience has highlighted the need for better education about sepsis for families and health care professionals which is something Kimberley is passionate about improving so that hopefully other families don't have to experience what her family went through and early detection/treatment for sepsis is provided if clinically indicated.

When Jessica's son was 13 months old he became very sick. After multiple emergency department visits, Ryan declined rapidly and was flown to the nearest major city. On arrival he went into cardiac arrest and Jessica was told he wasn’t going to make it. After 10 minutes thankfully Ryan pulled through, but was found to be in severe septic shock from a strep A infection. Although Ryan survived, due to the damage caused he had to have major surgery to amputate both of his lower legs and all of his fingertips/some fingers.

Jessica has been working to help raise awareness of sepsis and to help promote quicker diagnosis and treatment times.

Melbourne mother of two whose family journey was forever changed when her daughter survived sepsis at age 7. Catherine is passionate about sharing her experience to raise awareness, support research, and help other families navigate similar challenges through this program.

Kate is a mother of three children in regional Victoria, Australia. When Kate’s oldest daughter (now 7 years) was 18 months old, a medical decision to delay treatment of a urinary tract infection led to the toddler developing sepsis. Kate is a strong advocate for the importance of parental concern being recognised and acted upon in clinical settings. 

Professionally, Kate is a paediatric physiotherapist and has worked with children experiencing complications of sepsis in both acute and rehabilitation stages. Kate also has research experience, having completed a PhD in early detection of developmental delay using remote assessment methods.

Parent representative

Dr Alison Boast is a Paediatric Infectious Diseases Physician and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne.

Associate Professor George is an Emergency Physician and Paediatric Intensivist working in Queensland, Australia. He is an active clinician researcher with an interest in topics which span both emergency and intensive care practice, including sepsis. He is vice-chair of the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) research network and a member the of the Australia and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Paediatric Study Group (ANZICS PSG).

Dr Ben Lawton is a paediatric emergency physician working as a paediatric retrieval consultant in South Australia and in an emergency department in Queensland. He has active interests in simulation and patient safety.

Professor Debbie Long is a leading paediatric critical care nursing researcher. She is a professor in paediatric nursing based at Queensland University of Technology. A leading Australian researcher in paediatric critical care long-term outcomes, Debbie heads the Paediatric Intensive Care Optimising Long-term Outcomes (PICOLO) network, a collaboration of clinicians, researchers, and consumers dedicated to improving outcomes for children and their families following critical illness.

She was elected co-vice chair of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society's Paediatric Study Group in 2025.

Dr Sarah McNab is a general paediatrician and the Director of General Medicine at The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. She holds honorary appointments with Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (where she completed a Clinician Scientist Fellowship) and The University of Melbourne.

Sarah’s PhD research compared intravenous fluids in children and helped lead international practice change. Subsequently, she founded and co-chaired CIRCAN (Children’s Inpatient Research Collaboration of Australia and New Zealand) which has representatives from 42 hospitals.

Dr Srinivas Murthy is a pediatric intensive care and infectious diseases physician in Vancouver, BC, Canada. His clinical and academic interests are in innovative clinical trials to improve the outcomes of severe infections.

Dr Neil Wimalasundera trained in the UK and was clinical lead for the Wolfson Neurodisability service at Great Ormond Street Hospital before starting at the Royal Children’s Hospital in 2017.  He is the Director of the Victorian Paediatric Rehabilitation Service at the RCH and specialist interests include the management of complex movement disorders, cerebral palsy and acquired brain injury. 

Kat is a Paediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM) consultant at West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, where she is the clinical lead for children's emergency medicine and has a medical education role as post-graduate clinical tutor. She is an Executive Director of Don’t Forget The Bubbles (DFTB) and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the joint DFTB and Queen Mary University of London PEM MSc. Kat has an MSc in Trauma Sciences, is passionate about paediatric trauma research, and is a strong advocate for neurodiversity inclusivity and reasonable adjustments in an acute care setting.

Dr Jenala Njirammadzi is a Paediatric Intensivist and Senior Lecturer.  Her research interests are critical care, infectious diseases, monitoring, and safe patient transfer.

Dr Rahhika Raman is the Pediatric Emergency Head of Department at a 200 bedded pediatric teaching hospital in South India and President of Pediatric Emergency Medicine chapter of Indian Academy of Pediatrics - 2023-2024. Dr Raman is actively involved in improving Pediatric Emergency care in India and interested in research that would contribute to establishing standards of care in the region.

Dr. Özlem Tekşam completed her pediatric residency training at Hacettepe University. She completed Neonatology Fellowship training and she received a certificate of expertise in PEM at the same institution. She also received a PhD degree in Pharmaceutical Toxicology at Hacettepe University. Since 2015, she has been working as a Professor of Pediatrics at Hacettepe University as the director of the Division of PEM and the director of the General Pediatric Outpatient Clinic. Her specific areas of research and study are triage in hospitals, injury prevention, trauma, disaster, toxicology and training in PEM.

She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Turkish National Pediatric Society and the President of the Turkish Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care Society. Currently, she is working as Communication Leader of the Special Interest Group in the PEM Branch (EUSEP) of the European Society of Emergency Medicine (EUSEM). She is also past Co-Chair of the International Pediatric Association Strategic Advisory Committee on Children in Humanitarian Emergencies. 

Dr Antoinette David is a General Paediatrician at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital, Suva, Fiji, with special interests in Neonatology and Infectious Diseases. Her clinical research interest focuses on the management and outcomes of sepsis and HIV.

Viviana Pavlicich is a Pediatrician and Specialist in Pediatric Emergency Medicine, currently serving as Head of the Emergency Department at Hospital General Pediátrico Niños de Acosta Ñu in Paraguay. She is also Professor of Pediatrics and Coordinator of the Postgraduate Program in Pediatric Urgencies and Emergencies at Universidad Privada del Pacífico in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, as well as Director of the Advanced University Course at Universidad Privada del Este.

She has served as President and now as Advisor to the Latin American Society of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, and she is the Co-Coordinator of RIDEPLA – Latin American Pediatric Emergency Research Network.

Dr Janvier Hitayezu is a paediatric emergency and critical care physician, head of the paediatric critical care services (Paediatric ICU & HDU) at CHUK (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali) in Kigali, Rwanda. His day-to-day assignment consists in overseeing the clinical care of critically ill children as well as the training and coaching different medical professional cadres in this discipline within Rwanda and beyond. His other international participation includes a global community of clinician educators committed to improving critical care education and training and a paediatric BASIC course trainer.  

Janvier has also has strong ties and a track record with genetics. He attended the international summit of Human Genetics and Genomics in the NIH (USA) in 2017. He later on completed a two-year (2019-2021) Medical Genetics and Genomics Certificate Program (NHRH, NIH)

Passionate about and establishing himself in research, his special areas of interest have thus been paediatrics/child health and genetics. He is also an editorial board member for both Plos One & Rwanda medical journals.

Amanda has a background in paediatric emergency nursing. She currently is the Sepsis Research Program Manager and has worked as the Senior Research Nurse Coordinator for the Emergency Department Research Group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute for the last 15 years.

Amanda has coordinated several large, multicentre, Australian National Health & Medical Research Council funded trials within the PREDICT network, including the recent international PROMPT Bolus study, and SENTINEL International, which is recruiting across 23 countries worldwide. 

Amanda is also an executive member of the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) Network.

Toto is a freelance consultant, specialising in facilitating consensus processes and data analysis and the ethics of health research priority setting. Toto currently supports several JLA Priority Setting Partnerships and other projects, in the UK and internationally.

Previously Toto had a 30-year career with the National Health Service in the UK including: clinical work and research as Medical Physicist; supporting national projects in health informatics and health economics. In her spare time she enjoys the mountains, her family and dog.

Hanan is a registered nurse with clinical experience in the Cardiac Surgical ward in Lebanon. In 2022, she relocated to Melbourne. Since early 2023, Hanan has been a vital member of the Emergency Research Group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, actively contributing to research aimed at improving outcomes in paediatric emergency care. 

Hanan will take the role of the global data coordinator for the PASSPORT trial.