Compassionate care has drained away

I’D LIKE to think that my medical career has been grounded in giving patients compassionate, individual and focused care.

But would I have the same focus if I was doing my medical training now? I say this following more revelations about the true state of the health service, in the review of obstetric services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

I find it difficult to comprehend the mix of failings and incompetence that led to the deaths of more than 200 babies and nine mothers there.

In the 1970s, I spent a year as a resident obstetric assistant — there were three consultants, each present every day.

Every woman in labour had a midwife in attendance. The discipline was so strict that failure to record blood loss in a red pen in the patient’s file would result in a reprimand.

What changed? Many things, but it can basically be summed up in one word: management.

The triumph of management — with doctors, nurses and midwives becoming mere cogs in a larger machine — has led to compassion being replaced by box-ticking and indifference, and our NHS is all the worse for it.