Alan Glasper and Catherine Powell review the evidence and conclude that excluding parents from anaesthetic rooms may contradict the principles of clinical governance and compromise the rights of children and their parents

The intention of this paper is to reappraise the evidence base supporting parental presence in the anaesthetic room. A review of the literature includes reference to a study undertaken by one of the authors (EAG) that clearly demonstrated the beneficial effects of parental presence to the child. Despite this, anecdotal evidence is emerging which suggests that a growing number of parents are excluded at a time when their reassuring presence may be fundamentally important to the psychological well-being of their child.