Paediatric outpatient surgery under general anaesthesia.

An innovative health care programme to provide anaesthesia and surgery to small children on an outpatient basis is described, together with the results of formal evaluations of the programme. It is concluded that, with attention to the education of the child and parents at a pre-anaesthetic clinic and the involvement of one parent with the induction and recovery of the child, the anaesthesia and surgery experience has negligible adverse psychological impact for the child, a positive influence on parental understanding and appreciation of the quality of anaesthesia care, in addition to a reduced incidence of cross infection and reduced cost to the health care system.