Towards an ideal acute pain service.

“The Relief of Pain should be a Human Right” was the slogan of the ‘Global Year against Pain 2004-2005 Campaign’ organised by the International Association for the Study of Pain. Near the turn of the last Century, management of pain after surgery was revolutionised by advances in the field of anaesthesiology, particularly for techniques such as epidural analgesia, and the availability of the patient-controlled analgesia devices.