Anaesthesia for hip fracture: a survey of Scottish practice.

A postal survey of all senior anaesthetists with routine commitment to an acute trauma list in 13 Scottish hospitals was conducted to delineate contemporary anaesthetic practice for hip fracture surgery. Almost equal use of general and regional anaesthesia was reported, however the techniques used for general anaesthesia were different from those described in previous literature in this group. The recently released Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guidelines for the management of elderly people with fractured hip state that seniority of anaesthetist is important for improved outcome but there is no difference between either general or regional anaesthesia. However these conclusions relate to techniques and drugs which are now rarely used during general anaesthesia for hip fracture surgery. Further work to assess the impact of new techniques and agents on outcome for this group of patients may be required.