What happened to care?

EDITOR,—Brian Livesley asks rhetorically, “Has the heart of medicine become miserly and has the concept of care finally disappeared?”1 The answer must be a qualified affirmative—qualified because I still believe that doctors, nurses, and other vocationally trained health care professionals do care about their patients. Unfortunately, the newly reorganised NHS is in danger of losing its way, being dominated by the appealing logistics of numbers and quantity; by a system that seems to ignore patient choice, autonomy, and quality of care. …