New Hampshire’s Board of Nursing answers sedation questions in a position statement — seven PDF pages that are not themselves a rule and print no date. Its opening expectation is that administering medications classified as anesthetics for sedation and analgesia “requires special attention” (p. 1). It answers one clinical skill at a time in a four-column table (p. 4): moderate sedation is one row, a yes with conditions, while propofol and the other IV induction agents used for moderate or deep sedation get a separate row, closed to both licences (p. 6). Everything below about the statement is quoted or paraphrased from that PDF with page numbers; passages resting on another source say so and link to it.
New Hampshire at a glance
| Board | New Hampshire Board of Nursing (header: “NH Board of Nursing”, p. 1) |
| Document | “Position Statement, Definitions, and Clinical Practice Advisories Regarding the Role of the RN and LPN in the Administration of Anesthesia, Sedation, and Analgesia” (p. 1) — PDF, 7 pages. Page numbers here are PDF pages, not the printed footers, which differ on the first three. |
| Rule it applies | Not itself a rule. It cites Nur 405.01 for competence — “Pursuant to Nur 405.01 appropriate training and competency is a requirement for any licensee performing nursing care” (p. 1) — still the current competence rule. Its other citation, “NUR 404.12” in the epidural-catheter row (p. 6), no longer matches the current Nur rules, where a text search returns no occurrence of epidural or catheter in Nur 100–800 (checked 2026-09-02) — a check of the linked rules, not of the statement. |
| Status | Advisory. It states an expectation (p. 1) and calls its table a “Clinical Practice Advisory Summary” (p. 4); it is not printed as a Nur rule. The Board’s Scope of Practice page says position statements adopted before 1 July 2024 are not legally binding and lack the force and effect of law or duly promulgated regulations — general framing for its position statements, not a label on this file, which is not linked there (checked 2026-09-02). |
| Dates | Not stated in the document — no adoption, revision, effective or review date is printed in the seven pages. Its PDF file metadata records creation on 26 June 2018 (verified 2026-09-02); the newest reference listed is “American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses (2017)” (p. 2). |
| Who it covers | The RN and the LPN — every skill is answered in two columns, “Within RN Scope?” and “Within LPN Scope?” (p. 4). |
| Who it does not cover | No scope column for the APRN — the words APRN, advanced practice and nurse practitioner do not appear, and the document does not say APRNs are excluded, only that it does not answer for them. |
| Settings the document names | Three, all inside table rows: the “ICU setting” (pp. 4–5), the “home care setting” (p. 6) and a “palliative care setting” (p. 6). The words hospital, ambulatory, endoscopy and office do not appear in it. |
| Re-verification interval | Not stated in this statement — no annual, no renewal, no re-demonstration; the words hour, year and interval do not appear in the document. Its 2020 RN Scope of Practice Advisories recommend a cadence, but for the facility’s written guidelines rather than the nurse — see below. |
| Where the record lives | In the employer’s policy: “A written policy and procedure maintained by the employer” (p. 5). It names no nurse-level record, chart entry or competency file — the words record, chart and documentation do not appear in it. |
| CE hours | Not stated in this statement — no contact-hour count, no course named, no certification named; the words hour, course, continuing and certification do not appear in it. |
What the New Hampshire Board of Nursing says
Moderate sedation gets one row of the advisory table: within RN scope, Yes; within LPN scope, No (p. 6). Beyond the drugs and the nurse’s competencies, the row puts three things on the employer and the physician: “In addition, the facility must have policies and procedures to support this activity, and available antagonistic drugs, and the physician must be immediately available” (p. 6). The statement’s own monitoring standard: “The administration of sedation requires continuous monitoring of the patient and ability to respond immediately and appropriately to any adverse reaction or complication” (p. 1).
The definitions page sets the boundary: in moderate sedation/analgesia patients “respond purposefully to verbal commands, either alone or accompanied by light tactile stimulation” (p. 2), and “No interventions are required to maintain a patent airway, and spontaneous ventilation is adequate” (p. 2). The row’s competency sentence is the one for a policy review:
“It is within the scope of the RN provided the drugs are also within the RN scope of practice, and appropriate competencies have been met including rescue competencies, dysrhythmia recognition, and airway management.”
NH Board of Nursing — Clinical Practice Advisory Summary (p. 6)
Lines the advisory draws
Outside two local-anaesthetic rows — topical instillation, and “Local (intradermal, intramuscular, subcutaneous), including lidocaine with epinephrine” (p. 4) — the LPN column answers No the whole way down, moderate sedation included (p. 6) — a limit on the LPN, not a licence for anyone else. Propofol has its own row, No in both columns: “When used for moderate/deep sedation, these agents should be administered only by persons trained in the administration of general anesthesia and who are not simultaneously involved in the surgical or diagnostic procedure” (p. 6). Propofol in palliative care (p. 6), general anaesthesia (p. 4), nitrous oxide by mask (p. 4) and pre-induction airway assessment (p. 7) are No in both columns too.
What a New Hampshire facility should be able to show
The moderate-sedation row is a checklist in disguise, and three records fall out of it:
- A sedation policy and procedure supporting RN administration of moderate sedation, with antagonist drugs available and the physician immediately available (p. 6). It says nothing about emergency equipment; the written-policy provision that “shall specify” the required emergency equipment and medications belongs to a different row (p. 5).
- Per-nurse evidence that the competencies have been met — rescue competencies, dysrhythmia recognition and airway management (p. 6) — for every RN who administers moderate sedation, since the LPN column answers No (p. 6).
- Per-nurse evidence that competence is maintained: the statement attaches no interval, expiry or renewal to the training and competency Nur 405.01 requires (p. 1), so the interval is your own policy’s; the Board’s 2020 Advisories recommend reviewing a facility’s implementation guidelines as needed, at least yearly.
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Questions New Hampshire facilities ask
The PDF carries no date — is it still the Board’s position?
The document prints no date and is not among the files linked from the Board’s Scope of Practice page (checked 2026-09-02). It is not an orphan, though: the Board’s newer RN Scope of Practice Advisories, updated March 9, 2020 refer readers to it twice — for a computer-assisted personalized sedation system in endoscopy, and for injectable local anaesthetics.
Does the position statement set a renewal interval for sedation competency?
Not this document: it sets none — no annual re-demonstration, no expiry, no renewal — and it names no course and no certification. What it requires is that “appropriate competencies have been met” (p. 6) before the RN administers. But the Board’s 2020 RN Scope of Practice Advisories recommend that a facility adding an intervention beyond initial education adopt implementation guidelines that are reviewed and updated as needed but at least yearly (2020 Advisories, p. 1) — a recommendation about the facility’s own written guidelines, not a state re-verification interval for the nurse.
Can a New Hampshire RN give propofol for moderate sedation?
The table answers No in both the RN and the LPN column, and the comment gives the reason: these agents “should be administered only by persons trained in the administration of general anesthesia” and who are not simultaneously involved in the procedure (p. 6). Propofol is also the medication the statement names when it tells the nurse to decline one “restricted by manufacturer guidelines, including black box warning” (p. 1).
Compliance note (last reviewed September 2026): This page is educational information about the New Hampshire Board of Nursing’s position statement on anesthesia, sedation and analgesia, not legal advice or a compliance determination. Every quotation was checked word-for-word against the Board’s PDF on 2026-09-02; page numbers refer to the PDF’s pages, which do not always match its printed footers. The statement prints no date and is advisory in its own terms; confirm the current text on the Board’s site and check your own facility policy before relying on this summary. No state mandates this specific course.