Airway Suctioning training
This annual refresher ensures you maintain safe, competent practice in airway suctioning for the individuals you support. It covers the essential knowledge underpinning this delegated clinical task, including when suctioning is needed, how to perform it safely, infection control requirements, and recognising complications. Remember this refresher covers knowledge only; your practical competency must be assessed and signed off separately by a registered nurse for each person you support.
What This Training Covers
A clear, practical grounding in airway suctioning.
This annual refresher ensures you maintain safe, competent practice in airway suctioning for the individuals you support. It covers the essential knowledge underpinning this delegated clinical task, including when suctioning is needed, how to perform it safely, infection control requirements, and recognising complications. Remember this refresher covers knowledge only; your practical competency must be assessed and signed off separately by a registered nurse for each person you support.
Learning Outcomes
By the end, your staff will be able to:
What Your Team Will Learn
A closer look at the airway suctioning module.
The module is built in short, practical sections. Each one teaches a part of the topic, then applies it to a real care scenario and checks understanding before moving on.
Understanding Why Suctioning Is Needed
Some people cannot clear secretions, fluids or obstructions from their airway effectively themselves due to conditions like neuromuscular disease, spinal injury, tracheostomy or ventilator dependence. Without suctioning, these secretions can block the airway causing choking, aspiration, respiratory infection or hypoxia. You perform suctioning to maintain a patent airway and support adequate breathing. Each person you support will have individual signs that tell you they need suctioning, detailed in their care plan.
Different Routes of Suctioning
Suctioning can be performed through different routes depending on the person's needs. Oral suctioning removes secretions from the mouth. Nasal suctioning clears the nose. Oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal suctioning reach the back of the throat. Tracheal or tracheostomy suctioning goes directly into the windpipe through a tracheostomy tube. Your competency is person specific, meaning you are only signed off to suction the particular individuals and routes you have been assessed for by a registered nurse.
Safe Suctioning Technique
Safe suctioning requires correct catheter size, safe suction pressure, measured depth and limited duration. The person's care plan specifies these details. Suction pressure that is too high can damage delicate airway tissue. Inserting the catheter too deep can cause trauma. Suctioning for too long can remove oxygen as well as secretions, causing hypoxia. You must follow the exact technique in the person's protocol, which has been set by a registered nurse or specialist clinician based on that individual's needs.
Infection Prevention and Control
Strict infection control is essential during suctioning because you are accessing the airway, which is normally a sterile area. Use aseptic technique to avoid introducing infection. This means thorough hand hygiene, using clean or sterile gloves depending on the route, using a new catheter for each suctioning episode, not touching the catheter tip, and cleaning equipment properly after use. In a home setting you are responsible for ensuring catheters and consumables are in stock, in date, and stored cleanly to prevent contamination.
Recognising and Responding to Complications
Complications during suctioning can be life threatening and you must recognise them immediately. Watch for signs of hypoxia such as falling oxygen saturations, blue lips or increased distress. Bradycardia means the heart rate slows, which can happen from vagal stimulation during suctioning. Mucosal trauma causes bleeding. Respiratory distress means the person is struggling to breathe. If any complication occurs, stop suctioning immediately, position the person to support breathing, give oxygen if prescribed, and call for help. Know exactly when to escalate to the clinical team or call 999.
Working Within Your Delegated Role
Suctioning is a delegated clinical task, not a routine personal care activity. A registered nurse has assessed you as competent and delegated this task to you for specific individuals. You must work strictly within your signed off competency and never suction someone you are not assessed for. Your role has clear limits. If suctioning does not relieve the problem, if the airway becomes blocked, if equipment fails, or if the person deteriorates, you must stop and escalate immediately. You work alongside the clinical team including community nurses, respiratory specialists and therapists, and you must respect where your role ends and theirs begins.
Key Points Covered
The things your team must remember.
- Suctioning maintains a patent airway for people who cannot clear secretions themselves and prevents choking, aspiration and hypoxia
- You must only suction individuals and routes you hold a current person specific competency for, signed off by a registered nurse
- Follow the exact technique in each person's care plan including correct catheter size, suction pressure, depth and duration
- Use strict aseptic technique with a new catheter each time to prevent introducing infection into the airway
- Recognise complications like hypoxia and bradycardia immediately, stop suctioning and escalate without delay
- Work within your delegated role and know when to stop and call for clinical support or emergency help
Who and how often
Airway Suctioning is refreshed every year, for the staff in your care setting whose roles require it. It includes a practical sign-off.
CQC and standards
Supports the training evidence CQC expects to see for a well-run, safe care setting.
How CareStream Delivers It
Not a slideshow once a year. Training that sticks.
CareStream delivers airway suctioning training in the hub your team already uses, grounded in best practice and your own policies, so it fits your care setting and not a generic template.
Teach, then assess
Short teaching sections and a real care scenario, then an assessment that checks understanding.
In any language
Staff complete it in over 60 languages, while your records stay in English.
Learn and retry
A wrong answer triggers a short follow-up lesson and a fresh question, so the gap is closed.
Renewals handled
Automatic reminders at 90, 30 and 7 days, with a live compliance dashboard.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions.
Give your team airway suctioning training that actually sticks.
See how CareStream delivers your mandatory training in the hub, in any language.