environmental benefits that converge) exceeding the minimum required by law, and aligned with the needs and expectations of its stakeholders” (Bustos, 2017:134).

3.3. Humanisation and CSR

Humanisation and Corporate Social Responsibility go hand in hand in the health sector, they are intertwined, they share tasks and goals, overlapping in some areas, and they grow together, or at least they have over the last few years. As stated in the text of the Strategic framework for the promotion of Social Responsibility in Health Care in the Community of Madrid, CSR “is directly related with the ethical and humanizing perspective of health organizations” (General Directorate for the Coordination of Citizen Information and the Humanisation of Health Care, 2017:3).

The Institute of Innovation and Development of Social Responsibility in Health Care [Instituto de Innovación y Desarrollo de la Responsabilidad Social Sociosanitaria (Inidress)], in its decalogue of Social Responsibility in Health Care, states, in its second precept, that “the humanisation of health care is a transcendent and essential value of Social Responsibility in Health Care” (Inidress, 2017: 7).

Some authors think that CSR initiatives may serve as incentives for the implementation of humanisation plans in health care. Such is the conclusion of the workgroup for the humanisation of health care, composed by researchers from the Inditex Chair on Social Responsibility at the University of A Coruña, health care professionals from the A Veiga Gerontology Therapy Centre and health care administrators from the Integrated Management Office of the Health Care Department of Santiago de Compostela (Gil Paz, et al. 2018). This workgroup states the need to “place value on the social responsibility departments of health care areas… regarding actions that promote humanisation” (p. 60), and concluded that “the principles of social responsibility and its efficient communication could provide an excellent strategy towards the humanisation of health care” (p. 54). CSR actions and the humanisation of health care are two processes that share spheres of action in the hospital. They share the same recipients and a common goal of progressing towards excellent public relations.

Some CSR actions by the hospitals are clearly actions towards the humanisation of health care. The “Proyecto Plata” [Silver Project] may serve as a model, as it is a CSR plan destined to the development of a platform of voluntary work to accompany the patient after his/her discharge. This project, developed by the CSR Health Network2 , based on the data of the departments of patient services of six large level 3 hospitals (hospitals that hold most of the specializations) within three autonomous communities, aims to solve a problem found in 5.21% of patients discharged from hospital institutions, that is, the lack of social support necessary for the patient to go from the hospital to his/her usual residence. A social problem, non-specific of the health care area, but that has an impact in the patient’s wellbeing (CRS Health Network and Innova-Docencia Group No. 176, 2018).