There should be funding and arrangements for study leave such that all consultants and SAS doctors who have any responsibility to provide anaesthesia for children are able to participate in relevant CPD that relates to paediatric anaesthesia and resuscitation and to their level of specialty practice. Individual CPD requirements should be jointly agreed during the appraisal process.
There should be evidence of appropriate and relevant paediatric CPD in the five-year revalidation cycle.63
Anaesthetists returning to paediatric practice after a period of absence should have a structured plan of induction and supervision in place which supports their learning needs so that they are competent to provide safe perioperative care for common non-complex elective and emergency procedures in children aged one year and older.64
In non-specialist paediatric tertiary centres, consultant anaesthetists who care for children should have the opportunity to undertake regular supernumerary attachments to operating lists or secondments to specialist tertiary paediatric centres.
In non-specialist paediatric tertiary centres, having visiting consultant paediatric anaesthetists from specialist tertiary paediatric centres to attend operating lists to provide education and training updates should be considered. These may be part of the arrangements in place within a children’s surgery ODN. The Certificate of Fitness for Honorary Practice may facilitate such placements and provides a relatively simple system for...
Hospitals should define the extent of elective and emergency surgical provision for children, and the thresholds for transfer to other centres as part of an ODN for children’s surgery.
Non-specialist tertiary paediatric centres should have a multidisciplinary committee for paediatric care to formulate and review provision. This committee should involve anaesthetists, paediatricians, surgeons, emergency department representatives, senior children’s nurses, managers and other professionals, such as paediatric pharmacists. In some hospitals, this will also include critical care physicians.
In non-specialist tertiary paediatric centres a multidisciplinary committee should be responsible for the overall management, governance and quality improvement of anaesthetic and surgical services for children, and should report directly to the hospital board.9
The opinions of children, young people and their families should be sought in the design and evaluation of services and future planning.66
All hospitals that provide surgery for children and young people should have clear operational policies regarding who can anaesthetise children for elective and emergency surgery. This will be based on continuing clinical experience, the age of the child, the complexity of surgery and the presence of any comorbidities.8,15
