A Literature Review and Guidance for Nurse-Led Patient Extubation in the Recovery Room/Post Anaesthetic Care Unit: Endotracheal Tubes

A review of current literature highlighted the lack of national or local guidelines for post anaesthetic care unit (PACU) practitioners/recovery room nurses to extubate their own patients. This article documents the findings of a systematic literature review and gives simple diagrammatic representations from a comprehensive flow chart that has been developed to assist nurses in the extubation process. A knowledge and skills competency validated training package was developed locally with the anaesthetic department to train practitioners to undertake endotracheal extubation safely.