The Department of Anaesthesia comprises 60 consultants, 36 trainees and four physician anaesthetic assistants supported by other staff, delivering anaesthesia for over 220 sessions each week. Our clinical work across three sites is varied and includes cardiothoracic surgery, cardiology, obstetrics, inpatient and day-case surgery, chronic and acute pain, pre-assessment and exercise testing, imaging, endoscopy and radiotherapy. Much of this work has seen a large growth in the past five years.
The department has three core aims:
- Excellence in clinical care
- The highest standards of Education & Training
- World Class Research.
High quality clinical care is our priority. As an acute speciality dealing with situations that can quickly change, our focus is patient safety, being clinically effective and ensuring that patients experience of anaesthesia is as pleasant as possible. We see everyone before surgery so that our patients have a chance to discuss their anaesthetic. Our consultant-led emergency and obstetric theatres ensure that patients needing urgent surgery get the highest quality care. There is always a ‘duty consultant Anaesthetist’ available to help with planning care, challenging cases and to organize the anaesthetic team to meet the demands of the day.
The department has a strong tradition of excellence in education. A number of our consultants are examiners at the Royal College of Anaesthetists we also run a number of local, national and international meetings and courses. Because we recognize that medicine never stands still we are committed to developing our institution as a centre of excellence with regard to teaching and training including high fidelity simulator based training.
Our anaesthetic trainees come from the ‘Central School of Anaesthesia’ and are supervised whilst consultants completing modules in a variety of clinical areas. They range from foundation year trainees to experienced fellows gaining expertise in specialist areas at the end of their training. We have a weekly departmental meeting (Friday 8am), teaching sessions and research presentations.
The research activities (including our research fellows) are part of the wider‘Centre for Anaesthesia’. We believe that whilst anaesthesia is safe, we know there are aspects of surgery, anaethesia, pain medicine and critical care requiring more research, as our knowledge is incomplete. In some areas there are uncertainties about the benefits of particular approaches or treatments. We have an active programme of research including cardiovascular optimisation, medical devices, postoperative outcomes, cardiac imaging, altitude medicine and mechanisms of organ dysfunction.