A NATIONAL awareness day branded "barmy" by a leading Blackburn consultant, managed to set up links with local schools which could help hundreds of youngsters in the future.

National Anaesthesia Day saw hospitals and anaesthetists from across the country staging exhibitions and demonstrations aimed at increasing awareness of the profession by the public.

In Blackburn with Darwen, a team visited four schools and colleges in the area to give a talk and demonstration to around 100 students over 16 to encourage them to consider going into the profession and to increase awareness of what anaesthetists actually do.

Dr Stephen Mousdale, a consultant anaesthetist at Queen's Park Hospital, said the event, which is the brain child of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, was a bizarre idea.

"This is one of the barmiest ideas the college has had to promote the speciality.

"If this is going to carry on nationally, they should call it something other than National Anaesthesia Day and what we should do is go out to do a range of activities based around schools.

"We actually had very good feedback from the schools we visited, as it is hard for them to come in and visit us at the hospital, and perhaps in the future we could target children of a younger age."

The consultants visited Clith- eroe Grammar School, St Mary's College, Blackburn, Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School and Stonyhurst College during the day and saw students who were considering studying medicine at university.

Dr Mousdale said: "We are actually the biggest group of consultants that there is. Around 25 per cent of all consultants are anaesthetists.

"Although our main job is to anaesthetically prepare a patient for surgery, we also run intensive care, acute pain services and chronic pain services and provide epidurals for women in labour."

Staff also demonstrated basic life support techniques with a mannequin as part of their talk.