Paper short abstract:

Compassion is a key focus of British health policy. However, critiques suggest that it is the latest buzzword, with little meaning in practice. We tell stories about compassion as situated and alert to otherness-in-relation in order to open up possibilities for more ‘care-full’ policy.

Paper long abstract:

Compassion is acknowledged by practitioners and patients as crucial to 'good care' and it is a focus of current British health care policy. Recent exposures of failures of care are diagnosed as a consequence of lack of compassion (Francis 2013) and there is an explicit policy focus on putting 'compassion at the heart of healthcare' (DOH, 2013; NHS England, 2014). This is a welcome change in policy priorities, towards quality and every day ethics of care and away from targets and quantifiable outcomes (Berwick, 2014). However, critiques suggest that compassion is the latest buzzword in policy and professional training and has little meaning, especially in terms of promoting good care in locations of practice. Compassion is a more elusive entity than, for example, reducing waiting lists. It is responsive to individual patients' needs in specific contexts and is difficult to measure and quantify. We tell stories about compassion in a number of locations of care practice - a general community practice, a hospice, a roadside where a paramedic responds to an accident and a policy document. The stories articulate compassion as an effect of everyday practices and relations, unsettling collaborations and on-going negotiations. The stories show limits of, and require critique of, the generalisation of compassion. They narrate good care as embodied, curious practices that are alert to otherness-in-relation (Haraway, 2008). Finally we reflect on telling stories as a method for producing policy as more 'care-full'.