Understanding and taking observations (vital signs) and Recognising deterioration.
The session will help you understand the importance of taking patients observations (vital signs), being able to recognise when a patient is becoming unwell (deteriorating) and how to escalate your concerns at an early stage to improve the outcome for your patient.
Observations include:
- Respirations (breathing rate)
- Oxygen saturations (O2 stats) – the level of oxygen in the blood
- Blood pressure: The force that your heart uses to pump blood around the body.
- Pulse: (heart rate): the number of times your heart beats in one minute
- Level of alertness: how confused or alert is your patient.?
- Temperature: how hot or cold is your patient?
Each observation is recorded on a NEWS (National Early Warning Score) chart which gives a score of between 0-3, when all the observations are recorded the individual scores are added up to make a total score. The higher the score the more unwell your patient is.
You will be taking observations and completing NEWS charts during the session.
NHS England have produced some short useful videos about taking observations and NEWS which would be useful to watch prior to the session – please see link Managing Deterioration Using NEWS
Please click on the links below to watch and download the presentation for each slide
