Two-fifths of the British public are unaware that anaesthetists are doctors

Many people are unaware that when they go into hospital for an operation they will be anaesthetised - and cared for before, during and after the operation - by highly skilled doctors. Two-fifths of Britons do not know that anaesthetists are medically qualified doctors.

This lack of knowledge has led to the launch of a new patient awareness drive - National Anaesthesia Day - by the Royal College of Anaesthetists, to publicise the role of anaesthetists.

The drive is aimed at encouraging patients to ask questions about their care, and to be more aware of their rights to information about the different types of anaesthesia that are available - and to adequate pain relief following operations.

National Anaesthesia Day, launched today (Nov 9), is also stressing the variety of work that anaesthetists undertake to dispel the perception that they simply render people unconscious, then wake them up a few hours later.

In fact anaesthetists work in 90% of hospital departments. Without anaesthesia modern medicine would not be able to function. Many people are unaware that anaesthesia performs a key role in a wide variety of areas including: surgery, childbirth, dentistry, pain management, intensive care, A&E and even radiology.

Various aspects of anaesthesia are being highlighted. These include the facts that:

• Over 160,000 women a year in the UK are helped by anaesthetics during labour.
• Anaesthetists specialise in supporting the vital organs of the body, not just in putting people to sleep, which is why they run intensive care units.
• The growth in day surgery is happening because of new anaesthetic drugs and procedures, not because of changes in surgical techniques.
• Around 70% of patients treated by pain clinics return to work - only a quarter do if not treated in such clinics.
• Patients worry about waking up during anaesthesia, but new machines are being developed to check for "awareness".
• In some parts of the country anaesthetists are being trained in simulators, similar to airline pilots.

A survey by the MORI Social Research Institute looking at patient attitudes towards anaesthesia involved interviews with 1,857 adults throughout Great Britain earlier this year.

Only 60% of the public are aware that anaesthetists are medically qualified doctors. Asked what factors were important to them when undergoing an anaesthetic, 93% wanted to know how pain would be dealt with after surgery; 91% wanted to know the risk of waking up or being aware during surgery, and 90% wanted to know the risk of disability or death.

Commenting on the findings Professor Peter Hutton, President of the Royal College of Anaesthetists said: "We keep patients alive and well during surgery - over 4 million times per year! Grannies have anaesthesia - children have anaesthesia - patients are extremely safe in our hands. We don't just make people unconscious, we keep them well. We care for them before and after, as well as during, operations.

"Anaesthesia is not just about keeping patients asleep and pain free, but also controlling vital organ function. Only 50% of our time is spent in the operating theatre. We run intensive care units, provide pain relief in labour and delivery, and are actively involved in 90% of the work of an acute hospital."

The day is also being supported by the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland - the anaesthetists' "trade union". President of the Association, Professor Leo Strunin (who is also immediate past president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists) said British training for anaesthesia was amongst the best in the world.

Professor Strunin added that patients should become more vocal in demanding better pain relief after operations if this was not forthcoming.

"We could solve pain in a week, if every patient said to the surgeon and anaesthetist and nurses before their operation "what are you going to do about my pain afterwards?". It would be solved by patient power. We have the technology, we have the drugs - but people are too uncomplaining - they expect to have pain, and therefore don't complain. But if they said "I'm not willing to have pain, what are you going to do about it?" something would be done."

A further aim of National Anaesthesia Day is to stress the nature of the "all around an operation" care that anaesthetists provide. The term 'peri-operative physician' - from the Greek word peri, meaning around - is increasingly being used to describe the care anaesthetists give before and after operations, as well as during.

A variety of anaesthetists across the country have been interviewed for their views on the job as part of National Anaesthesia Day, and all stress the increase in peri-operative care.

Dr Geraldine O'Sullivan, consultant anaesthetist of St Thomas's Hospital, London, said: "Anaesthetics has increasingly become a profession where you look after the patient before, during and after surgery - it's not just knocking them out unconscious prior to the operation and then waking them up."

Professor Tony Wildsmith, of the University of Dundee, said: "The training of an anaesthetist has not just to be in the administration of the anaesthetic. Their training has to be in the assessment of the patient beforehand to judge the risk to them, to make decisions about what is the best way to anaesthetise them for the operation, and also it's in training and dealing with the after-effects of anaesthesia. Anaesthetics carries on long before the patient becomes unconscious and goes on for some while thereafter."

The aims of the day were welcomed by the Patients Association.

Claire Rayner, President of the Patients Association, said: "The fact that modern surgery is safer and less painful than it has ever been is almost entirely down to the skill and professionalism of the anaesthetists. The more patients know about this, the more relaxed they will be about going into hospital for surgery and the quicker they will recover."

ENDS

Notes to editors

MORI interviewed a representative quota sample of 1,857 adults aged 15+. Interviews were conducted face-to-face, in homes across 188 constituency-based sampling points across Great Britain. Interviews were conducted between 15 and 21 March 2001. Data have been weighted to the known profile of the British population.

Background factsheets are available on the following:

• what is anaesthesia
• pain relief - managed by anaesthetists
• obstetrics and anaesthesia
• paediatrics and anaesthesia
• intensive care - an anaesthetic speciality
• emergency medicine and anaesthesia
• dentistry and anaesthesia
• simulators for training anaesthetists
• the history of anaesthesia
• research in anaesthesia
• general issues facing the speciality - including the growth in day surgery and the care of the elderly
• how anaesthetists see their job - quotes from the frontline

The factsheets are available from the Royal College of Anaesthetists Website, under National Anaesthesia Day.