NMC OSCE TPR Chart Explained Includes Video
Ready? You can download a blank Temperature, Pulse and Respiration Chart (TPR) here.
At the top of the chart, you can see the patient’s NHS number, surname or last name and first name. These will likely be prefilled for your exam. Underneath that, you can see a space for the Candidate’s name – that’s your name.
Below this, using the very important concept of each column being an observation date, today we’re going to record the observations that we’ve got for our patient Mr. Clarence Schmit. The first part of the column is the year which we write out in full – here it’s 2020, under that we’ve got the day / month, which we record in two digits for the day slash two digits for the month. Here it’s 01/10. Underneath that, we’ve got the time, which we record using the 24-hour format. Here it’s 08:00.
Now let’s move into the tool itself. On the left hand side we’ve been given a key for guidance. We’ll use arrows for the Blood Pressure; a dot for the pulse and an X for the temperature.
Let’s start with the temperature. Our patient has a temperature of 36.3, so we mark that with an X in the box.
Then Blood Pressure. Our patient has a temperature of 135/85, so we make sure that the top arrowhead is in the box between 130 – 140 and the bottom arrow head is in the box between 80 – 90.
Next, our patient’s pulse is 75, so we make sure that our dot is in between the box marked 70 – 80.
To finish off our chart, we add the respiratory rate in the third row from the bottom of the column, as well as our initials underneath. So for fictional nurse Lauren Michaels, we’ve popped an LM in the box.
Now, as I mentioned before, this is an example from the NMC’s Oxford Brookes CTC, but there are other accepted versions too with slightly different variations eg. Numbers instead of dots. We go into this example as well as the other NMC OSCE charts – like NEWS and GCS – and various NMC OSCE scenarios during our 3, 4 and 5 day NMC OSCE Courses. To find out when the next one will be, head over to www.oscenurses.com. That’s www.oscenurses.com. Spaces on our courses tend to fill up quickly, but if your exam is coming up, it’s worth giving our registration team a call on 02036376722. That’s 02036376722. I hope you’ve found today’s video helpful and – as always – to your success.
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