Translating NICE suspected sepsis procalcitonin update into practice - Recording

Rob Shorten

Consultant clinical scientist, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals

Rob Shorten is a consultant clinical scientist at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals. He has broad experience in clinical microbiology and is the departmental lead for research, and the pathology lead for clinical audit. He is an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, and his research interests have included tuberculosis, including completing a PhD in the field of molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, as well as other papers in the areas of laboratory diagnostics, and viral haemorrhagic fevers. His current interests include diagnostic stewardship and environmental sustainability. He is also the current Chair of the Microbiology Professional Committee of the Association for Laboratory Medicine, as well as a member of their Green Champions.

Jonathan Clayton

Consultant clinical scientist, Lancashire and South Cumbria Pathology

Jonathan Clayton is a consultant clinical scientist in Biochemistry and is based at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals. Jonathan is the National Laboratory Lead and a Co-Applicant for the ADAPT Sepsis Trial, and is the author of the Procalcitonin monograph for the Analyte Monographs alongside the National Laboratory Medicine Catalogue, published by LabMed.

Fran Garraghan

Programme lead, British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

Fran Garraghan is programme lead at the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and a credentialled consultant pharmacist in Antimicrobial Stewardship. She specialises in strengthening antimicrobial stewardship across healthcare settings through programme development, education and practical quality improvement.

Fran has contributed to national and international AMS capacity building, including work in low resource environments and collaborations with multidisciplinary teams. Her experience spans behaviour change approaches, mentoring, and supporting colleagues across all stages of practice.

Her current focus includes developing AMS leadership capability, advancing global health partnerships, and creating inclusive learning environments that enable teams to act together on antimicrobial resistance.

Edward Hutchison

Consultant of Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthesia, Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford

Dr Edward Hutchison is a consultant in Anaesthesia and Critical Care at Broomfield Hospital, Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, appointed in June 2024. He works across general intensive care and theatres, with specialist interests in total intravenous anaesthesia, perioperative medicine for major general and urological surgery, and human factors in critical care.

He is the trust clinical lead for Organ Donation and has a longstanding interest in end-of-life care and in the organisational factors that determine whether national guidance translates into bedside practice. That interest shapes his contribution to this panel, which concerns how biomarker-guided protocols of the kind tested in ADAPT-Sepsis are adopted, sustained and audited within a working intensive care unit.

He brings the perspective of the receiving clinician to questions about front-door decision making, antimicrobial stewardship and the practical implications of the forthcoming NICE recommendations on procalcitonin.