A survey of the anaesthetic services to obstetrics in the Birmingham Hospital Region*

Abstract

The number of maternal deaths associated with anaesthesia has caused concern for many years. The progressive reduction in obstetric mortality referable to other causes has brought the hazard of anaesthesia into increasing prominence, as evidenced in the successive Reports in Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths in England and Wales. The Obstetric Anaesthetists' Association considered it appropriate that, as an organization with a fundamental interest in standards, it should institute an investigation into the range of factors which might be contributory, and it was decided that an intensive survey of the anaesthetic services provided within the obstetric field should be undertaken.