Manchester Triage System

Manchester Triage System

The most widely used triage system in the UK, Europe and Australia, by which millions of patients are processed through hospital A&E departments. It was devised by senior nurses and doctors working in A&Es and designed to be logical, simple and reproducible. The System sorts patients into 5 degrees of urgency, from immediate (0 wait time) to non-urgent (target, to be seen within 4 hours), initially streaming them into “majors” and “minors”.
Manchester Triage System
Group—Urgency—Code—Wait time
1—Immediate—Red—0
2—Very Urgent—Orange—10 minutes
3—Urgent—Yellow—1 hour
4—Standard—Green—2 hours
5—Non-urgent—Blue—4 hours