The Headlines report that perhaps as many as one million 'mistakes' occur within the NHS and that 2000 patients die every year from a variety of errors, ranging from falls, errors in medication, equipment defects and patient accidents. These figures exclude hospital-acquired infections, from which it has been estimated that as many as 20,000 patients may die each year; 10,000 from MRSA.

As can be gleaned from a number of features, book reviews and letters within this issue, cancer is hardly the good news it is sometimes presented as in the Media. In the words of Beata Bishop, herself a survivor of more then 20 years of malignant melanoma, having been given a prognosis of 6 weeks to live "…A life-threatening illness, such as cancer, pushes the patient into a narrow, grim, body-centred existence, where all interest and care are focused onto the endangered body and its symptoms. The diagnosis itself unleashes terror and a sense of helplessness." (See The Role of the Transpersonal Dimension in Life-Threatening Illness pages 15-17.)