The following policies covering the entire perioperative period should be held and easily accessible for the management of vulnerable patient groups, including but not limited to:
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
