Preface

Nurses, in whatever environment they practice, may be faced with patients who develop sudden unexpected changes in their clinical condition. This handbook aims to assist nurses in assessing these potential emergency situations and guide them in their initial management.

The book utilizes a range of clinical presentations first developed by the Manchester Triage Group and since adopted as a national triage standard throughout the UK and beyond.

Each chapter identifies those presentations which are true emergencies requiring immediate intervention within seconds rather than minutes, those that are urgent and therefore need action within minutes rather than hours, those which need timely attention within minutes or hours, and those which are non-urgent and therefore are not time dependant. The key signs and symptoms, history and assessment, observations and findings, investigations, and actions and treatment are identified for each of the clinical conditions identified.

Philip Downing