This morning the National news featured the newly proposed standardised bed chart for hospitals across the UK.
The hope is that by introducing the National Early Warning Scores (NEWS) chart it would eradicate the many different versions of charts that exist around the country. It’s said that this alone could prevent ‘hundreds of hospital deaths’.
St Mary’s plans
We thought that we’d check with St Mary’s to see 1) if any of the Doctors or Nurses there were involved in the working party that came up with NEWS (they don’t think so) and 2) when they planned to use them at St Mary’s.
The Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Nursing launched the new system yesterday and, St Mary’s have let us know that during August, the Colleges will be releasing a range of resources to help Trust’s implement the new system.
Their own system already in place
St Mary’s tell us that they already have a Modified Early Warning system in place and over the next couple of months they will be working to make the change to this new system.
Part of the process will include updating charts and providing additional training to staff where needed.
They tell VB that they “anticipate this will be fully in place by 31st October 2012 at the very latest.”
Carol Alstrom, Chief Nurse at St Mary’s commented, “I very much welcome this new national early warning system to help identification of the deteriorating patient. We already have systems in place at St Mary’s Hospital to do this but this new national system will help when new staff join us, such as junior doctors, locums or temporary agency staff as they will already be trained and able to use this approach.”
