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Background and Aims The adoption of the ‘Plan A’ blocks concept reflects a move towards a standardised approach to regional anaesthesia training in the UK. To improve consistency in the approach to these procedures an international consensus of anatomical structures to identify has been produced. Set up locally in 2021, ‘Sonoclub’ is a biweekly teaching programme involving a demonstration of sonoanatomy, practice scanning, and guidance on performing a specific Plan A block. Anaesthetists were observed at four Sonoclub sessions to determine whether teaching improved their ability to identify the key structures described in the international consensus.

Methods Participants were asked to identify seven anatomical structures on an ultrasound generated image of a Plan A block prior to the teaching session. Following the session, the participants were again asked to identify the same seven structures on the same image.

Results The pre- and post-teaching tests were conducted a total of 16 times. Test scores were not normally distributed. The median score on the pre- teaching test was 57.1 (67.8) (%), the median score on the post-teaching test was 100 (14.3) (%) [figure 1]. Wilcoxon Signed-Ranks test indicated that post-teaching scores were significantly higher than pre-teaching test scores, z = -3.195, p = 0.001.

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Abstract #35758 Figure 1

A boxplot demonstrating the distribution of pre- and post-teaching test scores

Conclusions Focussed sonoanatomy teaching as part of a local Sonoclub improved the ability of anaesthetists to identify important anatomical structures when performing Plan A blocks. This corroborates previous data from the local Sonoclub that the programme has improved the confidence of anaesthetists in regional anaesthesia.