NHS Early Warning Score (NEWS)

Hospital staff were commended by the national patient safety ‘1000 Lives Plus’ programme, for successfully implementing the NHS Early Warning Score (NEWS) earlier this year in our hospitals and in the community.

 

The NHS Early Warning Score helps staff to recognise at a very early stage when acutely-ill patients are starting to deteriorate. It provides a system for interpreting blood pressure, speed of breathing and heart rate and other vital signs. Patients who trigger a NEWS-Score will then be discussed by Consultant staff and Intensive Care doctors quickly, so that the patient can receive life-saving treatments.

 

Dr. Chris Subbe BCUHB champion for NEWS implementation says “This is an amazing achievement for the staff in North Wales.  We are one of the first health boards in the UK to achieve this level of implementation. In acute illness a timely response is crucial. This system will help us to teach recognition of life-threatening illness to nursing and medical students. It will also help us to assure, that all those involved with the care of acutely unwell patients speak the same language, enabling a prompt response”.

 

Jill Galvani, Director of Nursing, Midwifery and Patient Services said “It is crucially important that we identify patients who are at risk of deteriorating. Patient safety is our priority. Using NEWS demonstrates that staff in North Wales are completely focused on their patients safety”.

 

Photographed are:

 

L-R

 

Tracey Harris (Practice Development Nurse – critical care) (foreground)

Julie Ward-Jones (Service improvement facilitator)

Jill Galvani, Director of Nursing, Midwifery & Patient Services

Maggie Kilduff (Critical Care outreach)

Denise Roden (ENT sister)

Anwen Crawford (Head of service improvement) (foreground holding 1000 lives sign)

Debbie Murphy (Service improvement facilitator)

Heather Piggott, Assistant Director of Nursing