• Kieran Montgomery, Imran Khan, Kathleen Thomson, and David Wynne.
• Core Surgical Trainee, Royal Hospital for Children, UK kieranmontgomery@nhs.net.
• Scot Med J. 2016 May 1; 61 (2): 88-91.

Background And AimsThe World Health Organisation (WHO) surgical checklist acts as a safety check before surgery. The three components are: sign in, surgical pause and sign out. This study aims to assess and improve the surgical pause at a tertiary paediatric surgical unit.Methods And ResultsTheatre nurses used as a standardised tool to record how the pause was carried out. All other theatre staff were blinded. Presentation of these data at departmental meetings allowed creation of a checklist poster which was placed in every theatre. Data collection was repeated five months later. Data on 114 operations were initially collected. Fifty-one per cent of operations completed all four steps to guideline. Introduction step met guideline in 61% of operations, identity and procedure in 90%, checklist in 98% and concerns in 71%. Following intervention, data were collected from 39 operations; 77% of operations completed all four steps to guideline. Introduction step met guideline in 87% of operations, identity and procedure in 100%, checklist in 100% and concerns in 90%.ConclusionsThis study shows that by engaging with theatre staff to create an acceptable checklist poster, better standard of patient safety in the operating theatre can be achieved.© The Author(s) 2016.

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