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Content ArticleGeneral anaesthesia for obstetric surgery has distinct characteristics that may contribute towards a higher risk of accidental awareness during general anaesthesia. The primary aim of this study from Odor et al. was to investigate the incidence, experience and psychological implications of unintended conscious awareness during general anaesthesia in obstetric patients. Researchers discovered that one in 256 women going through pregnancy-related surgery are aware of what was going on — a far higher proportion than the one in every 19,000 identified in a previous national audit. If a patient is conscious at some point while under general anaesthetic, they may be able to recall events from the surgery such as pain or the sensation of being trapped, the researchers said.
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Content ArticleThe Safe Anaesthesia Liaison Group (SALG) Patient Safety Updates contain important learning from incidents reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS). The RCoA and the AAGBI would like to bring these Safety Updates to the attention of as many anaesthetists and their teams as possible. The updates are published quarterly and contain data from an earlier three month period. To join the safety network, and receive patient safety updates direct to your inbox, please contact the SALG administrator at admin@salg.ac.uk .
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Capnography: No Trace = Wrong Place
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Patient management
The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) and the Difficult Airway Society (DAS) have collaborated to create the video resource Capnography: No Trace = Wrong Place. Presented by Professor Tim Cook, the video shares the important message that during cardiac arrest, if a capnography trace is completely flat, oesophogeal intubation should be assumed until proven otherwise. -
Content ArticleThis article from Peden et al. reviews of some of the key topics and challenges in quality, safety, and the measurement and improvement of outcomes in anaesthesia. Topics covered include medication safety, changes in approaches to patient safety, payment reform, longer term measurement of outcomes, large-scale improvement programmes, the ageing population, and burnout. The article begins with a section on the success of the specialty of anaesthesia in improving the quality, safety, and outcomes for our patients, and ends with a look to future developments, including greater use of technology and patient engagement.
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Content ArticleThe International Standards for a Safe Practice of Anesthesia (ISSPA) were developed on behalf of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists and the World Health Organization. It has been recommend as an assessment tool that allows anaesthetic providers in developing countries to assess their compliance and needs. This study from Tao et al. was performed to describe the anaesthesia service in one main public hospital during an 8-month medical mission in Cambodia and evaluate its anaesthetic safety issues according to the ISSPA.
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Content ArticleThe pursuit of patient safety involves reducing the gap between best practice and the care actually delivered to patients. Understanding how to reliably deliver best practice care using established anaesthetic techniques may, today, be more important than seeking new ones. Advances in anaesthesia safety involve analysing failures and devising strategies to address these. However, anaesthetists do not work in isolation, and their contribution to the function of the multidisciplinary teams in which they work has far-reaching consequences for patient care.
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Content ArticleInadequate access to anaesthesia and surgical services is often considered to be a problem of low- and middle-income countries. However, affluent nations, including Canada, Australia, and the United States, also face shortages of anesthesia and surgical care in rural and remote communities. Inadequate services often disproportionately affect indigenous populations. A lack of anaesthesia care providers has been identified as a major contributing factor to the shortfall of surgical and obstetrical care in rural and remote areas of these countries. In this report, Orser et al. summarises the challenges facing the provision of anaesthesia services in rural and remote regions
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Content ArticleThe safety of anesthesia characteristic of high-income countries today is not matched in low-resource settings with poor infrastructure, shortages of anesthesia providers, essential drugs, equipment, and supplies. Health care is delivered through complex systems. Achieving sustainable widespread improvement globally will require an understanding of how to influence such systems. Health outcomes depend not only on a country's income, but also on how resources are allocated, and both vary substantially, between and within countries. Safety is particularly important in anesthesia because anesthesia is intrinsically hazardous and not intrinsically therapeutic. Nevertheless, other elements of the quality of health care, notably access, must also be considered. Surgical and anesthesia services must not only be provided, they must be safe. The global anesthesia workforce crisis is a major barrier to achieving this. Many anesthetics today are administered by nonphysicians with limited training and little access to supervision or support, often working in very challenging circumstances. Many organisations, notably the World Health Organization and the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, are working to improve access to and safety of anesthesia and surgery around the world. Challenges include collaboration with local stakeholders, coordination of effort between agencies, and the need to influence national health policy makers to achieve sustainable improvement. It is conceivable that safe anesthesia and perioperative care could be provided for essential surgical services today by clinicians with moderate levels of training using relatively simple (but appropriately designed and maintained) equipment and a limited number of inexpensive generic medications. However, there is a minimum standard for these resources, below which reasonable safety cannot be assured. This minimum (at least) should be available to all. Not only more resources, but also more equitable distribution of existing resources is required. Thus, the starting point for global access to safe anesthesia is acceptance that access to health care in general should be a basic human right everywhere.
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Content ArticleAnesthesia is necessary for surgery; however, it does not deliver any direct therapeutic benefit. The risks of anesthesia must therefore be as low as possible. Anesthesiology has been identified as a leader in improving patient safety. Anesthetic mortality has decreased, and in healthy patients can be as low as 1:250,000. Trends in anesthetic morbidity have not been as well defined, but it appears that the risk of injury is decreasing. Studies of error during anesthesia and Closed Claims studies have identified sources of risk and methods to reduce the risks associated with anesthesia. These include changes in technology, such as anesthetic delivery systems and monitors, the application of human factors, the use of simulation, and the establishment of reporting systems. Richard Botney reviews the important events in the past 50 years that illustrates the many steps that have contributed to the improvements in anesthesia safety.
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Content ArticleThe United Nations 2015 Millennium Development Goals targeted a 75% reduction in maternal mortality. However, in spite of this goal, the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births remains unacceptably high across Sub-Saharan Africa. Because many of these deaths could likely be averted with access to safe surgery, including cesarean delivery, Epiu et al. set out to assess the capacity to provide safe anaesthetic care for mothers in the main referral hospitals in East Africa. The authors identified significant shortages of both the personnel and equipment needed to provide safe anaesthetic care for obstetric surgical cases across East Africa. There is a need to increase the number of physician anaesthetists, to improve the training of non-physician anaesthesia providers, and to develop management protocols for obstetric patients requiring anaesthesia. This will strengthen health systems and improve surgical outcomes in developing countries. More funding is required for training physician anaesthetists if developing countries are to reach the targeted specialist workforce density of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery of 20 surgical, anaesthetic, and obstetric physicians per 100,000 population by 2030.
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WHO: Anaesthesia safety checklist
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Surgery
Anaesthesia safety checklist from the World Health Organization (WHO) covering: before induction of anaesthesia operating room operative procedure list postoperative care. -
Content ArticleDr J.S. Gravenstein, a much-respected leader of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, shares here some of his remarkably incisive current thoughts about and insight on anesthesia safety in our evolving practice environment.
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Content ArticleFor some people, anaesthesia is one of the scariest parts of surgery. Do you wonder about the risks, too? Anesthesiologist Christopher Troianos offers some insights to help separate fact from fiction. He highlights five key points about anesthesia that are sometimes misunderstood or have changed in recent years.
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Content ArticleThis month, we’ve been looking back over 2020 and highlighting some of the key areas of health and care that Patient Safety Learning has worked in this year. First, Chief Executive, Helen Hughes, gave an overview, detailing some of the main ways we’ve been achieving our aims as an organisation. Following that, we looked at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patient safety, and, earlier this week, we focused on advice and support for people living with Long COVID. In this blog, Patient Safety Learning reflect on the work we’ve been doing to highlight serious patient safety concerns relating to hysteroscopy procedures in the NHS and how we’ve been making the case for change.
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Content ArticleSusan Warby, 57, was mistakenly given a glucose rather than a saline drip at West Suffolk Hospital after an operation for a perforated bowel in July 2018. Staff noticed a rise in blood sugar concentrations but gave her insulin to lower them rather than check the drip, which remained in place for 36 hours. In 2008 the National Patient Safety Agency made recommendations for safe arterial line management. In 2014 the Association of Anaesthetists published guidelines aimed specifically at preventing such events. Structured processes to prevent inadvertent use of a glucose-containing fluid to flush an arterial line and regular blood glucose sampling from a location other than the arterial line are only partial solutions. However, a survey of management of arterial lines undertaken in 2013 indicated that this was a common problem, that many of the NPSA recommendations were not widely implemented and that almost one third of respondents were aware of ‘wrong flush’ errors on their unit and a further third in other locations within their hospital. In this Rapid Response in the BMJ, Tim Cook says now is the time for patient representatives, clinicians, regulators and industry to work together to achieve widespread implementation of an engineered solution to prevent arterial line errors.
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Content ArticleIn 2008, the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) issued a Rapid Response Report concerning problems with infusions and sampling from arterial lines. The risk of blood sample contamination from glucose‐containing arterial line infusions was highlighted and changes in arterial line management were recommended. Despite this guidance, errors with arterial line infusions remain common. Gupta and Cook report a case of severe hypoglycaemia and neuroglycopenia caused by glucose contamination of arterial line blood samples. This case occurred despite the implementation of the practice changes recommended in the 2008 NPSA alert. They report an analysis of the factors contributing to this incident using the Yorkshire Contributory Factors Framework. They discuss the nature of the errors that occurred and list the consequent changes in practice implemented in their unit to prevent recurrence of this incident, which go well beyond those recommended by the NPSA in 2008.
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'Stop before you block' poster (Safe Anaesthesia Liaison Group)
Claire Cox posted an article in Resources for staff
This poster produced by the Safe Anaesthesia Liaison Group, is aimed at theatre staff - especially anaesthetists. it is to ensure they have a second checker when it comes to administering an anaesthetic block. -
Content ArticleThe Safe Anaesthesia Liaison Group (SALG)'s quarterly patient safety updates contain important learning from incidents reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS). The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) and the Association of Anaesthetists would like to bring these safety updates to the attention of as many anaesthetists and their teams as possible.
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Content ArticleBetween 30 June - 05 July 2020, the College conducted a survey to assess its members' views on the current preparedness to restart planned services.
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Bulletin: Royal College of Anaesthetists (July 2020)
Claire Cox posted an article in Coronavirus (COVID-19)
In this edition of the Royal College of Anaesthetists bulletin, articles include: psychological consequences of COVID-19 a shift in incident reporting sleep and exhaustion. -
Content ArticleThe safe management of a patient’s airway is one of the most challenging and complex tasks undertaken by a health professional - complications can result in devastating outcomes. How can anaesthetists improve safety, prevent complications, and be prepared to manage difficulties when they arise? How, in a crisis, can we ensure that human and technical resources are best utilised? This free course from Future Learn, endorsed by the Difficult Airway Society, will provide answers to these key questions and help you develop strategies to improve patient safety in your area of practice, discussing safe airway management in patient groups and multidisciplinary clinical settings.
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Content ArticleIn this video, Prof Kevin Fong, Consultant Anaesthetist at UCL (University College London) is joined in a panel discussion by three other experts in Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE): Dr Fiona Kelly, Consultant Anaesthetist and Intensivist at Royal United Hospitals Bath and lead of the Difficult Airway Society (DAS) group on HFE Prof Chris Frerk, Consultant Anaesthetist at Northampton General Hospital and CHFG (Clinical Human Factors Group)Trustee Mr Clinton John, Operating Department Practitioner and Head for Clinical Education at UCLH. They will discuss and share their top tips about HFE in the context of airway management. This forms part of a free course from Future Learn Airway Matters course to help others explore key concepts underlying safe, multidisciplinary airway management.
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Content ArticleAccording to the National Institutes of Health (January 2019), more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids every day. Among these deaths are patients in the hospital setting, recovering from surgical procedures or undergoing sedation, who are often prescribed opioids such as morphine and oxycodone to manage pain – a necessity for healthy and comfortable recovery. But at certain doses, these drugs can also cause respiratory failure, and, because each patient is different, there is no one dose that is 'right' or 'wrong'. Hospitals must take action to ensure their staff are aware of these risks, and put protocols in place to prevent patient deaths. The authors of this US article, published by Medium, offer recommendations for improving patient safety in this area.
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Content ArticleIn intensive care units (ICU) and operating theatres, arterial lines are used to accurately measure a patient’s blood pressure and take numerous and repetitive blood samples. In order to prevent bacterial contamination and blood spillage from the arterial line, red arterial connectors, which are closed cap coverings, are placed on the sampling port of the arterial line. Doctors from The Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Kings Lynn have collaborated with Eastern Academic Health Science Network and the Patient Safety Collaborative on this patient safety solution.
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Content ArticleIt is important for the whole of the multidisciplinary team to have guidelines and standards, and that is the reason for the collaborative Core Standards for Pain Management Services in the UK (CSPMS UK). Representatives of the Faculty of Pain Medicine, the British Pain Society, the Royal College of Nurses, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the College of Occupational Therapists, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the British Psychological Society and patient representatives have jointly been the authors of this document.
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