Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital anaesthetists rewarded for high quality patient care

Anaesthetists at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, part of the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust have been recognised for providing the highest quality care to their patients. The prestigious Anaesthesia Clinical Services Accreditation (ACSA) from the College was presented at a ceremony on 27 September.

ACSA is the RCoA’s peer-reviewed scheme that promotes quality improvement and the highest standards of anaesthetic service. To receive accreditation, departments are expected to demonstrate high standards in areas such as patient experience, patient safety and clinical leadership.

Dr Vimmi Oshan, Anaesthetist, Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, said:

“Our journey through the process of ACSA accreditation has been an extremely rewarding experience for our department. It provided us with a comprehensive framework to review every single aspect of our Paediatric anaesthesia services with a fine tooth comb. We were able to evaluate areas that needed improvement and further strengthen the services that were doing well to ensure that we provided excellent care to our patients in all domains.

“We are proud to be the first department in the country to be awarded accreditation without having had to submit further evidence for any standard after our Peer review visit. This is a testament to the brilliant work carried out every day by a highly motivated and committed team that has the ethos of providing a high quality, safe and effective patient care embedded in its culture. We look forward to continued engagement with the accreditation process in the future.”

Professor Ravi Mahajan, President of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, said:

“I would like to offer my personal congratulations to the entire anaesthetic department on achieving ACSA accreditation. It is richly deserved and demonstrates their commitment to providing the best possible care for their patients.

“The review team were particularly impressed with how the anaesthetic department worked to assess carefully all of their services, improve on any gaps in their care and increase performance. 

“As well as meeting the standards, the department demonstrated many areas of excellent innovative practice that have now been highlighted for sharing through the ACSA network.”

Dr Lionel Davis, RCoA ACSA lead reviewer, said:

“Many congratulations to the Anaesthetic Department of the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital on being accredited by the Royal College of Anaesthetists ACSA process, this is richly deserved and we hope it will inspire other hospitals to follow in their example.

“The review team were impressed by the strong team ethic in the department, which had the care of the children of the hospital at the centre of everyone's efforts. There were many examples of good practice which would benefit children who encounter paediatric anaesthetists all over the country and the review team were confident that these standards are to be built upon at RMCH into the future.”