Forming a professional judgement that a patient, or group of patients, require a similar level of supervision. 

Professional judgement must be used when determining patients’ levels of acuity, bearing in mind that the nursing care they receive will need to be shared between the patients within that bay. 

Example 1: In a two bedded bay, where two patients are cohorted and cared for by one member of staff for 24 hours, this would equate to each patient receiving one-to-one care for the majority of care, so each patient would be categorised as a level 4. 

Example 2: when cohorting several patients together in a nursing bay to enhance the level of supervision available to them, this doesn’t mean that they all need the same level of supervision. Cohorted patients may also have different levels of acuity and so it would be appropriate for those patients to be categorised at different levels.