Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Inquiry)

“Systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.” That is T. S. Eliot, but it is a slightly pithier version of many recommendations in the Francis report. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is a tragedy that it has taken a tragedy to produce the report? My dad, as president of the British Orthopaedic Association in 2006, gave a lecture entitled “A New Professionalism” to reflect the alarm of clinicians at the changing culture in the 2000s, with a burgeoning management system and management priorities, tick boxes and targets taking precedence over clinical priorities. The Prime Minister has acknowledged that systems cannot replace professionalism, but will he listen to current professionals, who say that professionalism, which is what keeps the NHS afloat, is being eroded by things such as the working time directive?