Patient feedback and anaesthetists: What are patients assessing and why?

摘要

In its document Supporting Information for Appraisal and Revalidation [1] the General Medical Council (GMC) states that doctors need to produce six types of supporting information for appraisal and revalidation, and that one of these is feedback from patients. The purpose behind obtaining feedback is to gather information on how the patients we treat perceive us, in order to guide our future development. From the outset, concerns were expressed by many anaesthetists about the problems they anticipated in obtaining valid feedback.