Bryan Webster: Failed by a system set up to care for her every need

DEAR Consultant for Patient-Centred Care, I want to draw your attention to our friend (whom we will call Patience) who recently lost her life while being cared for by the NHS. I know you exist because politicians and NHS managers talk about patient-centred care all the time, so there must be someone responsible for it. But, like Richard III looking for Richmond on Bosworth Field, I kept thinking I had found you, only to be frustrated.

We ran into various doctors: our own GP (he lost track of Patience when she went to hospital); the doctor in A&E, who passed her on to the consultant on the ward (who looked for a disease, but couldn't find one). He passed her on to a junior doctor, ...