Challenges in achieving Anaesthesia Clinical Services Accreditation (ACSA) in labour ward at a busy district general

The anaesthetic department at Calderdale and Huddersfield foundation trust is aiming to achieve ACSA accreditation. An audit of obstetric duty anaesthetist cover on labour ward, attendance at morning multi-disciplinary team (MDT) handovers and ward round and follow up of women who needed anaesthetic intervention was conducted. This helped us benchmark our performance against standards based on the College’s guidelines for provision of anaesthetic services (GPAS) (1). GPAS recommends two duty anaesthetists should be available in addition to a supervising autonomously practising anaesthetist and that the duty anaesthetist should participate in multidisciplinary delivery suite handovers and ward rounds. The recent Ockenden review (2) suggests early anaesthetic involvement to enable good quality timely care.