Published on: 16th July 2024
Last Friday, RNOH welcomed Dr Felicity Plaat from the Royal College of Anaesthetists as she unveiled a plaque recognising our Anaesthesia Clinical Services Accreditation. ACSA sets national standards in anaesthesia in the UK. RNOH Anaesthetic Dept. went through a process of rigorous bench-marking against their standards that drove significant quality improvement and service development to provide even higher levels of patient care.
Dr Plaat was herself a trainee at Stanmore many years ago and being part of the ASCA committee she was excited to take the opportunity to come back to RNOH and present this plaque to Dr Ben Clevenger, Consultant Anaesthetist, and his colleagues from the department.
Unveiling the plaque, Dr Plaat said: “Thank you to all colleagues and Ben, who has done the most incredible job and work into achieving this accreditation. The amount of work that goes into this process that I’m sure you all know and have contributed to is immense. I hope you will be as proud of having this award as we are of awarding it - so congratulations to everyone!”
When asked by Dr Plaat what he was most proud of and what the most challenging aspects of the ACSA process was, Ben replied: “What I was most proud of when I got the report from ACSA committee was the opening statement about us being a cohesive and really positive department, and I think that is something we all feel as members of the anaesthetic department; our trainees feel it, our colleagues in pre assessment, in recovery, in theatres – it’s a great place to work and it was really nice to be able to show that off in a formal way through the ACSA process.
“Yes there definitely were a few challenges. We have logistical challenges, which makes things harder doing the great work we do constrained through the environment we work in. Also, some things are hard to change in terms the way that people do things, so there was a little bit of encouragement to do things slightly differently.”
Ben said this was the result of many months of hard work for colleagues but is ready for the next re-accreditation in five years’ time, and says it’s all about making improvements for our colleagues and patients.
Colleagues gathered in theatres to celebrate this final accolade with delicious home-made cakes and popped some fruit fizz. Congratulations to all in the RNOH Anaesthetic Department.