Trust presented with Royal College of Anaesthetists plaques

Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust staff are celebrating after being formally presented with Royal College of Anaesthetists Anaesthesia Clinical Services Accreditation (ACSA).

ACSA works with Anaesthesia departments to improve quality through peer review. Departments benchmark their performance against a set of standards based on Royal College of Anaesthetists guidelines. The process is endorsed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

Dr Sarah Thornton, Elected Consultant Council Member for the Royal College of Anaesthetists, presented Trust staff with the Pinderfields Hospital site plaque on Thursday last week. Plaques will also be on show in Dewsbury District Hospital and Pontefract Hospital.

Trust Chairman, Keith Ramsay, and Trust Medical Director, Richard Robinson, attended the presentation along with representatives from the Division of Surgery senior management team, and Anaesthesia and Theatres team members.

Dr Suzanne Taylor, Consultant Anaesthetist and ACSA Lead at the Trust, said: “As a department, we were both proud and delighted to receive the prestigious ACSA accreditation from the Royal College of Anaesthetists.

“It has been a huge team effort in the three and a half years leading up to success. ACSA was surprisingly far reaching, involving people and processes well beyond the day-to-day anaesthesia delivered across the Trust’s three sites.

“Anaesthetic doctors of every grade had the opportunity to be involved, developing guidance, updating existing policy, delivering training or auditing outcomes. The standards that required collaboration with other specialities led to improvements in patient safety and team working outside the theatre environment.”

Trust Chairman, Keith Ramsay, said: “Achieving ACSA accreditation is fantastic news for our patients and our staff, who have worked incredibly hard over the last few years to deliver this. I’m very proud of everyone in Anaesthetics, and it was great to see them celebrating when the plaque was presented.”