BMJ  2005;330 (26 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7493.0-g

Editor's choice

Heading where exactly?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

"The hospital care was spread over three sites, delivered by six teams and by numerous members within each team, while the information passed to her GP was patchy." So runs Craig Gannon's sobering critique of the fragmented care delivered at his hospital to an elderly woman whose death from unaddressed renal failure could have been averted (p 737). How many such stories lurk in the corridors of today's NHS, and what do they tell us?

Gannon says they tell us that, while individual clinicians are doing what they are asked, the UK's new tick box, target driven culture means they are doing no more than is required. People are working in silos and without clear ownership of patients by a lead clinician, so there is no continuity of care. If this is, as Gannon implies, a result of recent reforms, what can we expect from the next phase . . . [Full text of this article]

Fiona Godlee, editor

(fgodlee@bmj.com)


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