The provision of general anaesthesia in dental practice, an end which had to come?

31 December 2001 was the final day on which a general anaesthetic could be given in a dental practice in UK.* Henceforth all dental treatment requiring a general anaesthetic will have to take place in a hospital setting, which has immediate access to critical care facilities.¹ This will mark the end of the association between dental practice and general anaesthesia which dates back to the very first recorded clinical procedure performed under general anaesthesia, when in 1844, Horace Wells an American dentist, had a tooth removed by his assistant using nitrous oxide in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.².