Why does NEWS only start to give points to a systolic over 219??

On NEWS1 and NEWS2 it says if someone has a systolic of 111 - 219 they score 0?? The British heart foundation says anything over 140 systolic is dangerous? So why would a systolic of 210 not score on NEWS.....? So confused by this, any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

On NEWS1 and NEWS2 it says if someone has a systolic of 111 - 219 they score 0?? The British heart foundation says anything over 140 systolic is dangerous? So why would a systolic of 210 not score on NEWS.....? So confused by this, any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

As above, presumably because a pretty high systolic BP isn't really a sign of an acutely deteriorating patient.

The British heart foundation says anything over 140 systolic is dangerous?

NEWS can be too heavily relied on, and is often completed by junior staff who aren't able to also use clinical judgement to determine whether their observations are significant or not. Often it is looked at as a standalone measure and not in the context of the patient or their medical history.

Because we should treat people not numbers. If you have a patient who's systolic BP is over 200 you'd never ignore that. Unless of course it's chronic and doctors are aware prior. Or if you have a patient who's BP is bang on but symptomatic....you still need to investigate that. Although alot of doctors I find heavily rely on numbers!

Unfortunately, the case is that staff were not treating people, recognising deterioration and reacting to it, which is why track and trigger scores were rolled out in the first instance. The problems with these scoring systems have already been mentioned in Friar Chris' post, I've also found people will sometimes manipulate their obs so that they don't get a score that triggers a response.