Chapter 14 - Investigation

Introduction

The 2016 NAP6 allergy baseline survey showed that UK specialist perioperative allergy clinics are few and distributed unequally (Egner 2017a and Chapter 13). It also recorded self-reported clinical activity and perceived adherence to national guidance from the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI) (Harper 2009), the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI) guideline on investigation of anaphylaxis during general anaesthesia (Ewan 2010) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence CG183 ‘Drug allergy: diagnosis and management of drug allergy in adults, children and young people’ (NICE 2014).

We examined all cases reported to NAP6 and performed either a full (184 cases) or short (82 cases) review of care (Chapter 5). This included classifying the nature of the reported reaction, identifying the trigger agent where possible and assessing the completeness and quality of allergy clinic investigation, judged both against prevailing standards and with the performance claimed in the NAP6 baseline survey