{"id":8615,"date":"2015-07-29T16:13:13","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T15:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=8615"},"modified":"2025-06-27T11:10:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T10:10:26","slug":"liverpool-care-pathway-put-to-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/liverpool-care-pathway-put-to-sleep\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool Care Pathway put to sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marie<\/a>
Marie Curie claim to be ‘devoted to life’ yet they helped develop the ‘Liverpool Care Pathway’ devoted to death.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A controversial method of hastening death for terminally-ill patients has been scrapped, reports the BBC<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Liverpool Care Pathway<\/a><\/strong> (LCP), developed by Royal Liverpool University Hospital and\u00a0the Marie Curie cancer charity, involved the withdrawal of medication, food and fluids. \u00a0Patients were sedated, starved and dehydrated to death.<\/p>\n

In October 2012 figures released under the Freedom of Information Act showed that some two thirds of NHS trusts had received incentive payments<\/a><\/strong> for meeting “targets” for using the LCP, and that such payments totalled \u00a312 million or more.<\/p>\n

But now, England’s health watchdog, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), \u00a0has put forward new draft guidance to improve the care of adults in their last few days of life.<\/p>\n

The NICE\u00a0proposals make no mention of lists or tick boxes, much criticised in the LCP\u00a0approach.<\/p>\n

But crucially, there are calls now for basic daily checks to make make sure patients are well hydrated and nourished<\/a><\/strong>, a radical departure from the LCP. \u00a0Families should be encouraged to be more closely involved in care if appropriate and safe – for example helping to give loved ones sips of water – and there is\u00a0a demand from NICE for\u00a0clear communication and the involvement of patients and relatives in decisions.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, a review chaired by\u00a0crossbench peer Julia Baroness Neuberger<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0called for the LCP to be scrapped. \u00a0The review applied only to England.<\/p>\n

Many hospitals in England apparently ditched the LCP but it has taken two years for NICE to come up with an alternative.<\/p>\n

The Scottish Government announced in December 2013<\/a><\/strong> that the LCP would be phased out.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Northern Ireland the Liverpool Care Pathway remained, as at July 2014, according to the General Medical Council<\/a><\/strong>, \u00a0one of ‘several tools to help deliver palliative and end of life care’, although a review of the use of the LCP was said by the Macmillan cancer charity<\/a><\/strong> to be taking place.<\/p>\n

In Wales, an ‘Integrated Care Pathway (ICP) for the last days of life<\/a><\/strong>‘ was implemented in 2000, overhauled in 2010 and amended in 2012 ‘primarily to clarify issues around sedation, hydration and prescribing’.<\/p>\n

An All-Wales Palliative Care Conference<\/a><\/strong> is to take place at Gregynog in Powys on 8th & 9th October 2015. \u00a0The current ICP for Wales is downloadable\u00a0HERE<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0It still retains the ‘check-box’ approach and the ‘pathway’ name, but hydration is a goal in it and there is no apparent specific mention of the withdrawal of food.<\/p>\n

NB:\u00a0Please click here for an important subsequent development to this article<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find out how to join Christian Voice and stand up for the King of kings (clicking on the link below does not commit you to join)<\/strong>
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Please note that persons wishing to comment on this story must enter a valid email address. Comments from persons leaving fictitious email addresses will be trashed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A controversial method of hastening death for terminally-ill patients has been scrapped, reports the BBC. The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), developed by Royal Liverpool University Hospital and\u00a0the Marie Curie cancer charity, involved the withdrawal of medication, food and fluids. \u00a0Patients were sedated, starved and dehydrated to death. In October 2012 figures released under the Freedom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,86,184],"tags":[1514,887,1512,1513,754],"class_list":["post-8615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-euthanasia","category-secularism","category-uk-christian-constitution","tag-all-wales-palliative-care-conference","tag-liverpool-care-pathway","tag-marie-curie-cancer-care","tag-neuberger","tag-nice"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Stephen","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/stephen\/"},"rttpg_comment":5,"rttpg_category":"Abortion & Euthanasia<\/a> Secularism<\/a> UK Christian Constitution<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"A controversial method of hastening death for terminally-ill patients has been scrapped, reports the BBC. The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), developed by Royal Liverpool University Hospital and\u00a0the Marie Curie cancer charity, involved the withdrawal of medication, food and fluids. \u00a0Patients were sedated, starved and dehydrated to death. In October 2012 figures released under the Freedom…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}