All healthcare professionals participating in the assessment, administration, monitoring and recovery of patients requiring sedation are accountable for safe practice. The patient is entitled to the same standard of care, whether the procedure is undertaken in a physician’s office, a remote facility, or in an operating theatre.
These guidelines are for use by all medical practitioners and their teams, in order to provide safe sedation, analgesia and anxiolysis for adult patients. The objective is to develop the guidance provided by the South African Society of Anaesthesiologists (SASA) published in 2002. These guidelines were scheduled for review and modification in 2015.
The guidelines are applicable to adult patients undergoing painful or non-painful diagnostic or therapeutic procedures, and are not applicable to:
• Patients requiring intensive care sedation;
• The prescription of sedation for palliative care;
• Sedation for use in the home setting;
• Premedication for patients undergoing general anaesthesia;
• Night sedation;
• Analgesia during labour and delivery.
For further details on the guidelines, please click here.
Last Updated on 18 October 2016 by HPCSA Corporate Affairs