A response to ‘Different clocks, different times...’, Sehgel A, Bamber J, Anaesthesia 2003; 58: 398.

I was interested to read this letter. We faced a similar problem at Warwick some years ago. I came up with the same solution of clocks controlled by radio from Rugby. It seemed an elegant and accurate solution. It would obviate the need for resetting clocks with ‘daylight saving’. Indeed, we extended the idea to our operating rooms. The clocks were delivered with an instruction to fit to an outside wall. Most of our delivery rooms and operating theatres do not have an external wall. The signal does not penetrate well. Lack of penetration of radio signals into steel framed buildings is well known to those who use their mobile phones in contravention of MDA guidelines [1]. This lack of penetration is alluded to on the National Physical Laboratory website [2]. The result at Warwick remains as was – with clocks needing to be reset manually at the spring and autumn ‘clock changes’ and variance between patient loci. Indeed, the divergence from GMT/BST is greatest in theatres with a centralised anaesthetic monitoring system (Datex Ohmeda) – the time for which is derived from a central, dedicated server. The time displayed ‘drifts’ by about 60 s per month – leading to increasing discrepancies between ‘national time’ and ‘theatre time’. But that is a different story.