Medicine of the Person: a charter for change following the Mid – Staffordshire Francis enquiry.

Abstract

The findings of the Mid-Staffordshire Foundation Trust UK Inquiry, chaired by Robert Francis QC and its 290 recommendations for change in the culture of healthcare delivery are a stunning indictment of a management system that had lost the capacity to care for the patient [1]. Here, the healthcare had become unmoored from the core NHS values to care for patients and had become devoid of compassion, driven by top-down management system of secrecy and dishonesty, characterized by an almost total failure to listen to patients, families and carers.