Ideally, HDU patients should have continuous monitoring with observations recorded every 2 hours.

Establish realistic guidelines for your monitoring and staffing levels, and adjust for individual patients.

Pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, conscious level, urine output and pain score should be recorded.

Acceptable values should be defined for each patient and abnormalities must be acted upon promptly.

Example of an observations chart

Consider using an early warning scoring system (EWSS) to detect deterioration early.

Example of an EWSS chart