Search

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...

Hospitals should have clinical guidelines, including:⁴⁷

• involving patients in the management of their own diabetes
• ensuring that surgical patients with diabetes have an individualised explicit plan for managing their diabetes during the periods of starvation and surgical stress; this may require the involvement of senior anaesthetic staff and the availability of equipment to continue or institute variable-rate intravenous insulin...

As a minimum, all ASA 3–5 patients and those undergoing high risk surgery should have their expected risk of morbidity and mortality estimated and documented prior to an intervention, with adjustments made in accordance with national guidelines in planning the urgency of care, seniority of staff involved and postoperative care.^{16,54,60,61, 62}