New research from the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) and UCL shows that almost one in three patients (30%) having major non-cardiac surgery do not receive an individualised risk assessment despite recommendations from NHSE and the GMC.
One of the key findings is the substantial growth in locally employed doctors across all specialties. This mirrors the large and growing bottleneck between foundation and core training highlighted in our recent State of the Nation report.
Each hospital should have agreed written policies, protocols or guidelines, following national guidelines where these are available, covering:
the time allocated for the anaesthetist to undertake preoperative care in both outpatient clinic and ward settings. Job plans should recognise an adequate number of programmed activities5,6