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

Potential Indications

The following lists potential indications, but is not exhaustive: -

Large-bore chest drains

• Traumatic haemothorax (blunt or penetrating)
• Tension pneumothorax (only after needle decompression is performed)
• Traumatic simple pneumothorax
• Post cardiac and thoracic surgery
• Drainage of pus from an empyema

Smaller-bore chest drains

• Simple pneumothorax with lung that does not re-expand with aspiration or recurs
• Secondary pneumothorax in patient with lung disease
• Pneumothorax in any ventilated patient
• Removal of fluid from a malignant pleural effusion