Chapter 6 Guidelines for the Provision of Anaesthesia Services (Gpas) Guidelines for the Provision of Anaesthesia Services for Day Surgery 2024 Nice Has Accredited the Process Used by the Royal College of Anaesthetists to Produce Its Guidance on the Provision of Anaesthesia Services. Accreditation Is Valid for Five Years From 2023. More Information on Accreditation Can Be Viewed at www.nice.org.uk/accreditation.

Aims and objectives The objective of this chapter is to promote current best practice for service provision in day surgery anaesthesia. [...] However, both the authors and the Chapter Development Group (CDG) agreed that there is a paucity of level 1 evidence relating to service provision in day surgery anaesthesia. [...] The term ‘23-hour stay’ surgery is short-stay inpatient surgery and is not included in the UK definition of day surgery. [...] There should be a multidisciplinary management team responsible for the strategic development and running of the day surgery unit and a dedicated clinical lead or clinical director with allocated programmed activities to allow them to lead service development. [...] Consultant or autonomously practising anaestheticChapter 6 Guidelines for the Provision of Anaesthesia Services for Day Surgery 2024 | 5 involvement is essential in the development of policies, protocols and guidelines designed to facilitate smooth running of the day surgery unit and preoperative assessment processes.5,6,7,8,9 There should be a clear day surgery process for all patients for [...] Starting the list with a daycase patient may improve efficiency (no delay to starting list) in times of bed pressures. 1.16 Daycase patients should ideally be cared for in dedicated day surgery ward areas to ensure safe and timely discharge. [...] Chapter 6 Guidelines for the Provision of Anaesthesia Services for Day Surgery 2024 | 7 1.17 Locally agreed guidelines and policies should be in place for preoperative management on the day of admission. [...] 4.25 The facility to perform a 12-lead ECG and other point of care tests, such as international normalised ratio, should be available within the day surgery unit itself. [...] 7 Financial considerations There is a huge focus on the elective recovery programme and reduction in the backlog of patients waiting for elective surgery. [...] Ability of patients to retain and recall new information in the post-anaesthetic recovery period: a prospective clinical study in day surgery.