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The organisational culture should seek to empower health professionals to implement patients’ preferences, informed by discussions around risk and benefit.¹ Healthcare should be run collaboratively, with ownership and decision making in the hands of professionals and patients.²

Staff should recognise and act upon their duty of candour. They should ensure that patients are put first, and that any potentially harmed patients receive ongoing care and support as required.

A culture of collaboration should be encouraged by ensuring opportunities for clear, open, respectful and non-judgemental communication within the department where staff, irrespective of seniority or role, feel free to comment and challenge to improve care and reduce errors.³

The department should create a culture that promotes high quality care, quality improvement and improved outcomes.

The anaesthetic team should be empowered to shape their working environment to enhance safety and quality of care.  

The department should establish a culture of collaboration with other specialties that promotes a proactive and planned approach to service development.

The department should establish and support a culture that promotes the health and wellbeing of staff members.

The department must establish and maintain a culture of proactively thinking about and questioning equality, diversity and inclusion in all that it does, including recruitment, training, opportunities for extended roles and responsibilities.^4,5,6

The anaesthetic team should be empowered to ensure that their workload is appropriately manageable. Discussions concerning workload should be held in an atmosphere of respectful collaboration.

The department should aim for sustainability in all that it does, in the clinical context, its management and administration and in other activities. The department should contribute to initiatives to improve the environmental sustainability of the system.⁷