Carers have an important role as 'first early warners'. Even though they may be relatively untrained, care home assistants can be good at picking up 'soft' signs of deterioration that can precede 'hard' signs by several days.
Healthcare professionals need to tune in to 'normal person speak' so that the relevant information contained in what patients and carers are saying is 'heard' by the clinician and patients are escalated earlier if appropriate.
The same oxygen level brackets apply to categorising potential covid-19 patients as mild (95% or higher), moderate (93%-94%) or severe (92%, or lower).
In the care home setting decisions on admitting vulnerable people to hospital will take into account personalised decision making as well as clinical need.