National Early Warning Score (NEWS) 2

Many of you will be familiar with the NEWS, which is an assessment system for patients with potentially severe illness that scores six simple physiological variables.

• respiration rate
• oxygen saturation
• systolic blood pressure
• pulse rate
• level of consciousness or new confusion*
• temperature.

The numerical score for each variable, derived from the standard NEWS2 chart

https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/national-early-warning-score-news-2

reflects how far it varies from normal. 2 points are added if supplemental oxygen is needed maintain the patient’s saturation.

NEWS 2 in now being recommended as the national system for assessing acute illness severity, and although it is primarily intended for hospital use, all the observations can be undertaken in general practice. We think it has two important uses when referring very sick patients: first, it means the admitting doctor will have a good idea of the likely urgency of the problem from the GP’s initial NEWS2 assessment, and second, by making serial NEWS assessments it will be clear if the patient is deteriorating as they move through the system – failure to notice such changes is a regular feature of avoidable death reviews in secondary care.

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