The term ‘non-technical skills’ came from the European aviation regulator in the 1990s and the concept is now used to underpin training and workplace-based assessment in a number of safety-critical occupations, including healthcare.

In this article Rhona Flin gives a brief overview of three non-technical skills frameworks developed for training and evaluating the performance of clinical practitioners. These are: ANTS for anaesthetists; NOTSS for surgeons; and SPLINTS for scrub practitioners.