The NHS has long declared its commitment to 'patient-centred care' but a large gap remains between the fine words and the reality. This book offers new insights by listening closely to those with frontline experience of being cared for. It draws on the power of story-telling increasingly valued as a tool for learning and research to help healthcare professionals, managers and politicians to understand how to deliver care that is better organised around patients.

It provides accounts from patients and carers about what it's like when services get it right and wrong, from birth up to the end of life. Each testimony provides powerful messages which are hard to ignore. The cumulative presentation suggests a set of key principles to inform a redrawing of the system.