Is quality of life determined by expectations or experience?

at risk of making. A critical incident review would have shared this knowledge with others and enabled those involved to take part in a full and frank discussion about what had happened. The danger in the senior consultant’s approach is that the message may have been, “When things go wrong, falsify medical records” rather than “When things go wrong, deal with an error in as open a manner as the situation allows.” A proper internal review would also ensure that when things do go wrong changes are made to systems to minimise the risk of the mistake being repeated. This would go some distance towards ensuring that lessons are learnt from medical errors. Competing interests: None declared.

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