[Compassionate care, a perpetual quest].

The French Federation of Regional and Territorial Bodies for the Improvement of Health Practices and Organisations and the French National Authority for Health have produced a guide and tools devoted to the promotion of compassionate care in health institutions. The assessment of the use of the guide has shown increasing awareness of compassionate care on the part of institutions but a paradoxical exclusion of users from the approaches undertaken. An analysis of the reasons for this partial achievement of the objectives has resulted in a revision of the working methods and opens up new perspectives for development.