The National Early Warning Score (NEWS)

The National Early Warning Score (NEWS) is the best validated track-and-trigger Early Warning Score (EWS) system and is used in the majority of UK hospitals to identify and respond to patients at risk of deteriorating or sepsis.

All hospitals in the North East and North Cumbria (NENC) use NEWS and for the majority of patients recording of their ‘vital signs’ is electronic.

NEWS is used by The North East Ambulance Service in their electronic patient record, and by many GP practices.

The AHSN NENC is supporting use of NEWS in care homes in our region and whilst there has been good progress, more work will be needed to embed NEWS2 (updated in December 2017) along with standardised approaches to communication of risk of deterioration.

Publication

An article has been published by Oxford Academic on the NEWS system. View the article.

The article presents novel data on the distribution of NEWS readings in care home residents and suggests that use of the NEWS in the care home setting is feasible.

A short report has been produced by NEQOS reviewing the use of NEWS by GP practices within the AHSN area, the report has been updated to include the latest survey results from January 2021. View the report

As part of this report NEQOS conducted a short online survey of GP practices in December 2019 and this is the first time that information on the use of NEWS by GP practices has been published.