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Facilities should be provided for regular rest breaks and refreshments as well as quiet facilities for sleep during and after shifts for anaesthetists working overnight.^34,43,50,51

Adequate emergency theatre time should be provided throughout the day to minimise delays and avoid emergency surgery being unnecessarily undertaken out of hours when the hospital may have reduced staffing to care for complex postoperative patients. Consideration should be given to staffing of additional evening (twilight) emergency sessions with autonomously practising anaesthetists.

An anaesthetist, anaesthesia associate or advanced nurse practitioner should preoperatively assess all patients undergoing emergency surgery who require anaesthesia. Adequate time should be available for this assessment to occur as clinical urgency allows.^43,47

For children, a staff member with an advanced paediatric life support qualification or an anaesthetist with paediatric competencies should be immediately available.⁴

The consultant anaesthetist should be easily contactable, and should be available to attend within two minutes of being requested by the AAs.³

In single specialty centres, the anaesthetic department should adopt the generic standards described throughout GPAS. This should include a lead paediatric anaesthetist if children are treated.

All major head and neck surgery should be overseen by a named consultant anaesthetist with a subspecialty interest in this area.⁶³