Chest Drains Online Skills Pack

Table of Contents

1. Chest Drain Programme
2. Essential Pre-requisite Knowledge
   1. Introduction
   2. Indications
   3. Potential Indications
   4. Anatomy and Physiology
   5. Risk Assessment
   6. Psychological considerations
   7. Risk Factors
   8. Procedural Guidelines - Chest Drain Insertion Generic Aspects
3. Large bore chest drain insertion
4. Small-bore chest drain insertion
5. Pre-hospital chest drain insertion
6. Chest drain management
7. Chest drain Removal
8. Risk Factors of Chest Drain Management
9. Theoretical Assessment - Chest Drains
10. Housekeeping
11. Appendices

Indications

There are many reasons why chest drains are inserted in the clinical area.

Chest drains are considered to be either large (24-32 F gauge) or small bore (10-14 F gauge). Small bore chest drains are normally inserted by the Seldinger or 'needle over wire' technique.

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Figure 2. Large bore chest drain (32 F gauge)

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Figure 3. Small bore Seldinger chest drain (12 gauge)