Her mother Daphne died from the condition nearly 12 months ago, and Mrs Baker is hoping to spread awareness so others don't suffer the same fate.

Sepsis is a life-threatening response by the body to infection, when chemicals aimed to fight infection become imbalanced and is often mistaken for pneumonia, the flu or urinary infections.

Mrs Baker's mother was 90 year old, and despite fighting throat and lung cancer fell sick.

"She was really unwell ... she was dehydrated and couldn't eat so we called an ambulance," she said.

The ambulance arrived, but paramedics didn't immediately take her to hospital.

"[My mum] didn't want to be sick but also didn't want to be a problem," Mrs Baker said.

Having visited a doctor a day or two before, Daphne decided against going to hospital in the ambulance, but was driven there only a few hours later after her condition didn't improve.

After being taken to hospital, nurses initially couldn't take a blood test as Mrs Baker's mother was so dehydrated, and Mrs Baker said it was hours before a blood test was done to check for sepsis.

It's most dangerous in those who are very young or very old.

By the time the test was done, it was too late.

"Within eight hours, she was gone ... her body had shut down," Mrs Baker said.

She wants to raise awareness so people are able to come in and ask for a test for sepsis straight away to avoid becoming one of the 5000 people who are killed by the disease each year.

"Make sure you ask 'is it sepsis, can we make sure?'," she said.

"Hospitals do everything they can but ask anyway.

"We want to make people aware of it, to ask for tests for it. If they've got flu-like symptoms, get the two blood tests and be sure."