Just a few days before Christmas 2024, my dad became critically ill after what should have been a routine bowel cancer operation. An infection quickly turned into sepsis, and within hours we were told he was fighting for his life and to prepare for the worst.

He spent two weeks in Intensive Care, including four days on life support with multiple organ failure. His kidneys began to fail, and he needed dialysis before eventually moving to a hospital ward to begin the long road to recovery.

But leaving hospital wasn’t the end of his journey. He spent much of the following months in and out of hospital with ongoing complications, showing us that recovery from sepsis doesn’t end when someone is discharged.

Thanks to the incredible care he received from the NHS, my dad survived, and I will be forever grateful to the doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals who gave us more time with him.