Multidisciplinary support for preoperative assessment staff from other physicians, medical specialists, anaesthetists, surgeons and pain management teams should be available.
For children, a staff member with an advanced paediatric life support qualification or an anaesthetist with paediatric competencies should be immediately available.4
Training of anaesthetists includes attaining the competency to perform medical assessment of patients before anaesthesia for surgery or other procedures.40
The secondary care clinic should be predominantly led by suitably trained nurses or other extended role practitioners using agreed protocols and with support from an anaesthetist.
Busier units should consider having two duty anaesthetists available 24/7, in addition to the supervising consultant.24
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
