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The urgency of emergency cases should be clearly and unambiguously coded.¹⁴ There should be regular review of delays to facilitate improved theatre access and to promote accurate urgency coding at booking. Prioritisation of cases based on their urgency is not the sole domain of any single specialty. It requires a team approach involving discussion between different surgical groups, anaesthetists...

Children may require anaesthesia for diagnostic procedures such as MRI scans. Although separate written consent for anaesthesia is not mandatory in the UK, anaesthetists should ensure that parents and legal guardians have been informed about the associated risks and common side-effects of the anaesthetic.  There should be a written record of all discussions, including those of the requesting clinician, with...

Where ophthalmic surgery is performed as a day case procedure, the facilities should conform to best practice guidance. Day surgery operating theatres should meet the same standards as inpatient operating theatres.^24,25,26 Room should be available for patients to be seen in private by the anaesthetist and surgeon on the day of surgery.² A supervised...

Agreed local guidelines should be in place and implemented on the following:

• compliance with best practice anaesthetic management protocols for hip fracture as recommended by the Association of Anaesthetists^{14, 85}
• tailored World Health Organization (WHO) safety checklists to identify the potential for adverse events associated with the requirement for use of bone cement should be used during...

Preoperative assessment, optimisation and shared decision making in older patients with multiple comorbidities, frailty or cognitive impairment require a cross specialty approach involving anaesthetists, surgeons, geriatricians, pharmacists and allied health professionals. Liaison with a clinical pharmacist to support older patients with polypharmacy in the perioperative period will enable optimisation of medicines and improved management of the patients’ non-surgical comorbidities during...

There should be a fully resourced children’s inpatient pain service.^30,31 The service should be delivered by an appropriately trained and experienced multidisciplinary team (MDT), with specific skills in children’s pain management. The team may include clinical nurse specialists, anaesthetists, paediatricians, surgeons, pharmacists, child psychologists and physiotherapists. In hospitals with a smaller paediatric caseload, and non-complex surgical...