The 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.

Theatre 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%.

This 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.