The nurse anaesthetist.

With the ongoing debate on New Ways of Working in the National Health Service, the role of nurses and other perioperative practitioners in anaesthetics is becoming an increasingly prominent issue. The opening up of new anaesthetic roles to nurses and their non-medical colleagues raises questions as to their own acceptance of these new roles and their acceptance by their medical colleagues. In this article, the author addresses the question as to whether perioperative practitioners are ready for the nurse anaesthetist, and whether the UK as a whole is ready for this initiative.