NAP8: Regional Anaesthesia and Complications Audit

Baseline Survey

Beginning 1 March 2026 (duration four months).

Individual clinician survey

An online survey for all UK & Irish EM clinicians. This will investigate attitudes, experience and training in regional anaesthesia as well as previous experience of complications of regional anaesthesia. It will take 5-10 minutes to complete and will not require specialist knowledge.

All responses will be anonymous and confidential. Local Co-ordinators (LCs) will be sent a link to the online survey to distribute to all EM clinicians in their department. The survey should be completed by all grades of clinicians working in the ED. After completion of the survey, respondents will be asked to send an email confirming completion to their LC to enable the LC to track who in their department has responded.

LCs will likely appreciate some help and this is a great opportunity to get involved.  LCs will be provided with certificates that they can send to colleagues who have completed the survey.

Local Co-ordinator baseline survey

This seeks additional summary data about department size, structure, equipment and preparedness for management of regional anaesthesia complications.

Activity Survey

The activity survey will be carried out during the 12-month registry period (1 June – 7 June 2026). It will serve two purposes:

1. Create a quantitative snapshot of activity in the UK & Ireland. This will be used to calculate denominator data for NAP8.
2. Collect details pertinent to regional anaesthesia and complications. This will help develop a more detailed understanding of regional anaesthesia practice across the UK & Ireland as well as collecting specific patient and procedural risk factors that are relevant to the complications collected during the registry phase.

Each hospital site will be asked to survey on seven consecutive days. LCs will be asked to facilitate this survey in their ED to ensure that the department is aware of the survey and to check that all patients have a completed survey form.

One activity survey entry will be completed by the clinician for each interventional procedure during the survey period at each site using an electronic form. A link will be sent to the survey and each case will be recorded by completing the survey. We strongly advise that individual clinicians complete the link themselves as soon after the case as practically possible.