In Reply

We would like to thank Dr. Hyder for his interesting and pertinent comments.

Dr. Hyder is correct. We did not include the surgical Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems® within our review¹  for the very reasons he states. It considers too many aspects of hospital care to be able to provide specific, reliable information on patient satisfaction with “anesthesia.” We agree wholeheartedly that a huge part of the anesthetists’ role is to act, in effect, as a patient advocate, and to ensure that they are “cared for-period.”

However, here in the United Kingdom, we are required by the Department of Health to provide evidence that our speciality is providing top quality care. As a result, it seems prudent to ensure that we provide this information in an accurate and unbiased manner. This is made more likely through the use of speciality-specific, psychometrically developed tools which can allow an accurate data collection and benchmarking of results.

Our role as “perioperative physicians” is expanding and we hope to be valued, not only for our clinical excellence but also for our high-quality communication skills and empathy toward patients and relatives. In order to produce “transparent” evidence to our patients and governments, a speciality-specific instrument becomes essential. Only when we collect quality data explicit to anesthesia using concise, “non fatigue-inducing” questionnaires can we truly comment on our salient role within health care.

The authors declare no competing interests.