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Children should be separated from and not managed directly alongside adults throughout the patient pathway, including in waiting rooms, preassessment clinic rooms and theatre areas, including anaesthetic and recovery areas, as far as possible.²¹⁵ These areas should be child-friendly and should be staffed by suitably trained and qualified practitioners within recovery.²⁰¹

Special care should be taken to assess social circumstances when discharging elderly patients into the care of an equally frail and elderly spouse. Home support from family or social services may be required; for instance, to ensure that postoperative eye drops are administered in an appropriate and timely fashion. These needs should be identified at preoperative assessment and support arranged...

Arrangements should be in place to minimise the risk of drug administration errors and ‘never events’ and there should be a robust mechanism through which to learn from these events should they occur.^{26,27,28,29,30,31}