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Anaesthetists should participate in departmental audit and should adhere to the standards and principles outlined in the RCoA ‘QI Compendium.⁴³

In single specialty centres, the anaesthetic department should adopt the generic standards described throughout GPAS. This should include a lead paediatric anaesthetist if children are treated.

Young people have additional needs and may wish to speak to the anaesthetist or another member of staff without direct parental presence.^62,89 Anaesthetists should make it clear that they are willing to speak with young people on their own, on request.

Inpatient pain services (IPS) should be staffed by multidisciplinary teams led by appropriately trained consultant or SAS anaesthetists. The minimum training requirement for new appointments to IPS lead roles is Royal College of Anaesthetists higher pain training.³²  Advanced pain training, or its equivalent, should be considered optimal.

Anaesthesia for all patients undergoing major vascular surgery should be provided by or directly supervised by an anaesthetist suitably qualified, trained and experienced in vascular anaesthesia. This will be a consultant or other autonomously practicing vascular anaesthetist, who has overall responsibility for the patient’s care. ¹⁸

Anaesthetists in training should be given the appropriate level of responsibility, according to their competence and level of training, to gain the experience of emergency anaesthesia to enable them to function as a consultant later in their career. Anaesthetists in training must be appropriately supervised at all times; rotas and staffing arrangements should be in place to facilitate this training.⁹⁶