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Risks associated with anaesthesia should be discussed and risk infographics such as the Royal College of Anaesthetist’s ‘Common events and risks in anaesthesia’ should be available.¹⁰⁰

All equipment used for regional anaesthesia and analgesia should have NRfit connections.¹³⁸

Where possible, drugs should be made available as pre-filled syringes.¹⁶⁷

Business planning by organisations and anaesthetic departments should ensure that the necessary resources, including adequate time, are targeted towards perioperative care. This should include administrative support.

If appropriate resources are not available, the level of clinical activity pertaining to those resources should be limited, to ensure safe provision of perioperative care.⁴ The hospital policy for determining, communicating and documenting this process should have input from the anaesthetic department.

Hospitals should have a clear and explicit strategy for developing a strong safety culture, which includes the following characteristics: recognition of the inevitability of errors, commitment to discuss and learn from errors, proactive identification of latent threats, and the incorporation of non-punitive, fair and transparent systems for reporting and analysing adverse events.^7,8,9

All anaesthetic records (paper and electronic) must contain the relevant portion of the recommended anaesthetic data set for every anaesthetic and must be kept as a permanent document in the patient’s medical record.^5,6

Hospitals should review their local standards to ensure that they are harmonised with the relevant national safety standards.^10,11,12 Organisational leaders are ultimately responsible for implementing local safety standards as necessary.¹³

The organisational culture should seek to empower health professionals to implement patients’ preferences, informed by discussions around risk and benefit. The ownership and decision making in healthcare should be in the hands of professionals and patients.^14,15

Information relevant to clinical staff concerning clinical outcomes, patient experience and productivity (such as theatre efficiency) should be readily available to staff.^15,16