What is a surgical site infection?

A surgical site infection is an infection that occurs in a surgical wound. It may be a wound that has been closed with stitches, clips or stripped together. It can be a low-grade infection where you get redness around the wound and that is what we would call an early stage wound infection. Then you can get a wound infection that can result in pus being discharged from the wound. You can also then get a wound infection that leads to a systemic infection where the person becomes unwell, they may complain of feeling hot, having a fever and may even develop rigors and this is related to what's called either a bacteremia or they may develop something called sepsis and septicaemia and in this latter group this requires hospital admission and very urgent treatment with IV antibiotics. you