Anaesthetics

Our anaesthetics service works closely with our other teams to assess and prepare you when you come in for an operation, provide you with appropriate types of sleep and pain relief, and supervise your care after your operation in our recovery wards, high dependency unit or intensive care unit.

Location: Central Middlesex, Ealing, Northwick Park and St. Mark's Hospitals
Division: Surgery
General manager: Luke Casey

Our team is made up of consultants, speciality doctors, physician's assistants, and a team of skilled nurses. As well as being experts in their own fields, our consultants and senior nurses also teach and train other healthcare professionals both here at LNWH and outside our Trust.

Our anaesthetics team perform a number of activities to help care for you while you are staying with us.

Pre-operative assessment

Our specially trained nurses will work closely with our anaesthetists to screen, assess and prepare you if you need surgery and anaesthesia. This helps us to:

• identify if you have a chronic medical illness early on, so that we can perform any further investigations that you need and make sure that your condition is as well-managed as possibly before you have surgery;
• explain what is happening with your care, and discuss any concerns or questions that you may have;
• work more effectively so that we can see you at the right time, in the right place
• improve your care.

Anaesthetic service 

We anaesthetise about 24,000 people every year who are having operations or surgical procedures. This can involve a range of techniques, including:

• local anaesthetic injections to numb specific nerves (epidural and spinal techniques)
• giving you with various injectable medicines and gases to produce general anaesthesia.

All our anaesthetics are delivered by a fully trained practitioner who is present throughout your surgical procedure.

Acute pain service 

In our acute pain service, we look after patients who have been admitted to hospital and who are experiencing acute pain. This might include people who have recently had surgery, or who have been referred to us for advice on acute pain management.

We might also see you if you have a complex history, such as:

• opioid dependence
• multiple hospital admissions and surgical interventions.

If you are coming into hospital for surgery and would like to see a member of the acute pain service, please ask a member of your clinical team to contact us.

Maternity analgesia and anaesthetic service 

Our team provide a 24-hour pain relief and anaesthetic service for caesarean births and instrumental deliveries. If you need some additional assessment before you give birth, you are likely to be seen by one of our consultant anaesthetists in our dedicated weekly clinic.

Resuscitation and trauma care

We work closely with our Emergency Department to provide resuscitation and trauma care in our hospitals, Our doctors form a key part of our medical emergency, cardiac arrest and trauma teams.

Elective high dependency care

If you have just had a complex operation and need to be observed closely by our team, we will look after you in our Elective High Dependency Unit (EHDU), We may also look after you here if you have recently been very unwell, but your condition is now improving (this is known as ‘stepping down’ from higher levels of care).

Contact our anaesthetic service:

• at Central Middlesex Hospital 020 8453 2396
• at Northwick Park Hospital 020 8869 3969 or 020 8869 3974