Environments in which patients receive anaesthesia or sedation should have full facilities for resuscitation available, including a defibrillator, suction, oxygen, airway devices and a means of providing ventilation.9
The procedure room should be easily accessible to the resuscitation team and large enough to accommodate them and appropriate equipment if required.
It should also be possible to arrange transfer of a patient from the procedure room to other areas within the institution if necessary.
A recovery or equivalent should be available for each patient at the end of the procedure.
Facilities to allow access to online information, such as electronic patient records, local guidelines and clinical decision aids, should be available.
All patient trolleys should be capable of being tipped into the head-down position and be easily transferrable to the rest of the hospital.19
Equipment for monitoring should be available at all sites where patients receive anaesthesia or sedation.10 For patients receiving conscious sedation, this should include pulse oximetry.
Continuous waveform capnography should be available for all patients undergoing general anaesthesia and moderate or deep sedation.10,11
The anaesthetist should ensure that an adequate supply of oxygen is available before starting any procedure. Many of the sites where anaesthesia is provided outside the main operating theatres do not have piped oxygen; if anaesthesia is provided frequently in such a location, the use of the location should be reviewed or piped oxygen provided.
Where piped oxygen is available, back-up cylinders should always be available and appropriately stored.
