The Royal College of Anaesthesia's 3rd national audit commences on 1st September 2006 and runs for 12 months.

All Neurosurgeons are asked to report any major complication of spinal, epidural or caudal anaesthesia presenting to their service.

The complications of interest are:

a) Spinal infections (eg epidural haematoma, meningitis)

b) Spinal bleeding (eg spinal haematoma)

c) Major nerve damage (eg paraplegia, spinal cord damage, spinal cord infarction, major neuropathy)

d) Wrong route errors (iv drugs given epidurally /intrathecally or vice versa)

e) Death where the anaesthetic/analgesic procedure is implicated as causal.

Complications, without patient specific details, are to be reported by email to t.cook@rcoa.ac.uk Local investigators will then collect relevant data.