All hospitals are being urged to set up pre-operative assessment clinics to reduce cancelled operations and ensure that risks are minimised when patients undergo surgery. And specialist nurses and family doctors have a key role to play.

Asking an anaesthetist to use equipment on a patient when they are unfamiliar with it is as bad as asking a pilot to fly a jumbo jet full of passengers when they are only used to DC10s. That's why the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain a