Francis cannot define compassionate care but we can still practise it

 Iain Wilkinson is an ST6 in the London Deanery and wrote the letter below for publication in the BGS newsletter

The second Francis report into the failings at Mid Staffordshire hospital will have stirred up feelings in a number of the readers of this newsletter. For me, I am actually quite anxious about the report. I see a number of things that happened at North Staffs that happen in every hospital I have worked in. The report shines a spotlight onto a number of areas of our practice as geriatricians and on-call general medical doctors, as highlighted by David Oliver’s excellent review (March 2013). Much of this is “structural” in nature (i.e.. training etc.). There are however some areas that are key to the way we work.