Institutions and their failure to care: bureaucracy and the practice of emotion

Any study of radical care needs to pay attention to the institution as a place of care. Yet, institutions have been more readily associated with failures of care than successes. We undertake close reading of the Ockenden Review of maternity services in a National Health Service hospital trust in England, concerning a large number of families that received inadequate care during pregnancy and birth, including investigations of adverse outcomes such as deaths of babies and mothers. We argue that to enable better care in the institution requires a close attention to its institutional nature, particularly its scale, bureaucratic mode and functions, and the professional identities that work within it, and the ways they shape the practice of emotion.