Anaesthesia is no longer judged solely on whether a patient feels pain during surgery. Increasingly, its success is defined by how quickly that patient can recover, mobilise, and return home. This shift, driven by the rise of day-case surgery and enhanced recovery pathways, has repositioned anaesthesia from a supporting function to a determinant of system performance.

This creates a clear opportunity. Approaches that can accelerate recovery while maintaining safety can unlock both better patient outcomes and more efficient use of hospital capacity. Regional anaesthesia sits at the centre of this shift.

By reducing systemic drug exposure and enabling earlier mobilisation, regional anaesthesia aligns closely with the priorities of modern surgical care. In some settings, particularly in orthopaedics or urology, it has become the dominant approach for routine procedures. In others, it remains selectively used, dependent on clinician preference and institutional practice. This uneven adoption reflects a broader reality: regional anaesthesia is not a standardised protocol, but a situational decision shaped by clinical, operational, and human factors.

The insights in this article are based on discussions Sector & Segment has had with clinicians, including surgeons and anaesthetists, across a range of specialties and countries.

A technique with many forms, applied unevenly across surgery

Regional anaesthesia refers to techniques that numb​ ​​a specific region