Perioperative fasting - related publications

This listing covers publications about the perioperative fasting guidelines including the full clinical guideline recommendations and the quick reference guide. It also lists related guidelines that inform these publications from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network. Also included are relevant current awareness resources.

Some of these resources are in PDF - [see how to access PDF files]

Guideline publications

These are downloadable from the RCN website on the Clinical guidelines pages - see Perioperative fasting 

The publications available are:

Perioperative fasting in adults and children: an RCN guide for the multidisciplinary team

Full guideline (PDF 2.4MB)

Shorter guideline (PDF 328.7KB)

Quick reference poster (PDF 387.6KB)
This colour poster shows all the key recommendations from the guideline in a flow chart form.

Related guidance

Role development

  • Perioperative Care Collaborative (2007) Position statement: Optimising the contribution of the perioperative support worker.
    This statement outlines the view of the Perioperative Care Collaborative on the principles of best practice in the employment and utilisation of support workers. The RCN is a member of the collaborative. For this statement and related documents see Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP): Standards and guidance. 

Current awareness and updating tools

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)

NICE  provides a number of email newsletters that you can sign up to. These include a general NICE e-newsletter and 'Into practice', a newsletter for implementers.

NICE also offers an alert system for new content added to the website according to area of interest.

For further information and details of how to register see NICE newsletters and alerts.

 Royal College of Nursing (RCN)

These further resources from the RCN may also be of interest:

  • Quality and Safety e-Bulletin
    Emailed on a fortnightly basis, the e-Bulletin is organised around key themes such as patient safety, quality improvement tools and techniques, patient focus, and eHealth. You can register to receive copies and see examples of earlier issues.
  • Clinical Governance Resource
    This resource aims to promote a better understanding of clinical governance and provides information about RCN publications, products and services, as well as resources and organisations available elsewhere, to support clinical governance activities. Themes include quality improvement, patient focus, staff focus and leadership.
  • RCN e-library
    This can be accessed using your membership number and provides access to full text journals, e-books and databases.
  • RCN Research and Innovation Bulletin
    The RCN Research and Innovation Bulletin aims to keep you posted with the very latest development in the world of research and development. This page has further details and examples of the Bulletin, and points you to the registration form.