Platform 3: assessing needs and planning care
14 marks of the 100 in Part B, which runs for 150 minutes.
Platform 3 is about noticing. The questions give you a set of observations, a score, a result or a description, and ask what it means and what happens next. This is where the scored tools live, so the arithmetic in Part B is here too.
What this section asks about
- Structured assessment, including A to E and person-centred assessment
- NEWS2, recognising deterioration and when to escalate
- Assessing capacity, and the law that governs decisions when it is absent
- Recognising people at risk of harm, self-harm and suicidal ideation
- Undertaking and interpreting routine investigations
- Co-morbidity, frailty and end of life needs, and when to refer on
Where the marks go
14 marks of the 100 in Part B, which runs for 150 minutes. The NMC splits this section across the levels of Bloom's taxonomy:
- Remember and understand: 5
- Apply and analyse: 5
- Evaluate and create: 4
Where candidates lose marks
- Scoring a tool from memory of the bands rather than the chart. NEWS2 scores oxygen saturation differently on scale 2.
- Assessing without acting. A score is not the answer; what you do about it is.
- Missing the safeguarding question inside a clinical one.
Questions people ask
- Do I need to know NEWS2 for the CBT?
- You should be able to score the common parameters and say what the total triggers. It is the national early warning score in England and questions about deterioration usually assume it.
- Is there arithmetic in Part B?
- Some. Scored tools such as NEWS2, GCS and MUST appear, and they are added up rather than calculated. The on-screen calculator belongs to Part A.
Practise this section
Practice is filtered by section, so you can work on this one on its own. Every account gets 10 new questions a day without a card.