Critically ill patients are complex and hold unique particularities that makes them more susceptible to side effects and complications of regional anaesthesia techniques. Experienced regional anaesthetists should perform/supervise regional anaesthesia techniques in these patients.
Each unit should have a designated clinical lead (see Glossary) anaesthetist who is responsible for cardiac anaesthesia services. This should be recognised in their job plan and they should be involved in multidisciplinary service planning and governance within the unit.
Consultant or autonomously practising anaesthetists intending to follow a career in paediatric cardiothoracic anaesthesia should have higher training in general paediatric anaesthesia of at least one year followed by a specialist training period of an appropriate duration in the subspecialty.
Departments should review the on-call responsibilities of anaesthetists as part of annual appraisal and job planning.57 Reviews should take into consideration subjective assessment of fatigue and consider seeking advice from an accredited specialist in occupational medicine if necessary. This may apply, but not exclusively, to older anaesthetists.54,58
A system should be in place to ensure that women requiring antenatal referral to an anaesthetist are seen and assessed by an anaesthetist, normally a consultant, within a suitable time frame. Ideally, this should be in the form of multidisciplinary team management of these high risk women. Where the workload is high consideration should be given to risk stratification so...
Head and neck surgery provides an excellent opportunity for the formal and systematic training of anaesthetists in the use of advanced methods for airway management and the shared airway, including videolaryngoscopy, fibreoptic intubation, and jet and apnoeic oxygenation techniques. Where possible, additional equipment such as monitors, video recorders and airway simulators should be made available to facilitate this important aspect...
The duty anaesthetist should have an effective and rapid means of communication with their supervisor at all times.23 Staff working in the maternity unit should be aware of their supervisor’s identity, location and how to contact them. The name(s) of the autonomously practising anaesthetist(s) covering the delivery suite and how to contact them should be clearly displayed and easily...
