Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust anaesthetists rewarded for high quality patient care

Anaesthetists at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust have been recognised for providing the highest quality care to their patients. The prestigious Anaesthesia Clinical Services Accreditation (ACSA) from the College was presented at a ceremony on 25 July.

ACSA is the RCoA’s peer-reviewed scheme that promotes quality improvement and the highest standards of anaesthetic service. To receive accreditation, departments are expected to demonstrate high standards in areas such as patient experience, patient safety and clinical leadership.

Dr Sara Law, Specialty Doctor in Anaesthetics, ACSA Lead, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust said:

“Our path to ACSA accreditation, a long and occasionally frustrating journey, has, ultimately, been very rewarding. The whole department has engaged and worked together developing our service to meet the high standards of patient care and safety required by the college. The ACSA process has also helped us push forward with some much needed equipment and infrastructure improvements.

The three-day site visit allowed us to showcase our achievements to a friendly and supportive review team which in itself was wonderful for the morale of the department. We are very proud to be the 29th department to achieve accreditation and to have contributed towards improving anaesthetic care in the UK still further. “

Professor Ravi Mahajan, President of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, said:

“I would like to offer my personal congratulations to the entire anaesthetic department on achieving ACSA accreditation. It is richly deserved and demonstrates their commitment to providing the best possible care for their patients.

“Patient safety is at the heart of what we do as a medical Royal College and it was impressive to see the team’s integrated working across all staff and hospital sites.

“It has been great to see the department going beyond the standards and delivering ideas which will be helpful for other hospitals in the ACSA network”

Dr Anile Tore, ACSA lead reviewer said:

“Congratulations to everyone in the Anaesthetic department at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust on achieving a very highly deserved ACSA accreditation. Well done. The review team were very impressed with the engagement of all members of the staff including senior managers. Standardisation of practice and application of policies across all sites within the Trust was particularly noteworthy.

“In addition to meeting the ACSA standards the department demonstrated many areas of excellent innovative practice that the visiting team have highlighted for sharing through the ACSA network.’