The Discredited "Liverpool Care Pathway" is Still Killing People.

I've already blogged about how many people were given secret DNR notices on their medical record during the pandemic, something else that I knew was still being used has hit the news.

In this report an 88-year old lady was put on an "end of life pathway" after suffering a stroke, despite being otherwise healthy. So healthy, it took over 25 days for her carers to terminate her life by starving her to death.

For the unaware, the "Liverpool Care Pathway" (LCP) was introduced as a way to end the suffering of a patient that was already close to the end of their life. For many reasons, continuing to feed a person in the late stages of cancer for instance, could only prolong their suffering. The LCP was introduced as a "humane" way of allowing those people to slip away. They would already be on large doses of painkillers, so withdrawing food and fluid would not add much if anything to their suffering.

But it was found the LCP was being applied to ill but otherwise healthy patients who were inconveniently staying alive, or possibly labour-intensive, as a way to shorten the burden to the organisation. It was found that patients that would have recovered from their illness were being put on the pathway and it was the pathway, not the illness that then ended their life.

In these cases, the LCP was rightly deemed inhumane. Not only for the person being effectively starved to death, but also for the families, having to watch their loved one go through up to and sometimes over a month without food or fluid.

It was supposedly removed as a "treatment" back in 2014. However, in the NHS and the Social Care Sector, the LCP appears to be alive and well, it's just not called the Liverpool Care Pathway. Patients are still being prematurely denied food and fluid for a number of reasons, in an effort to end their life early.

I will leave it up to the reader as to why that may be, but I have my suspicions. But the one reason that it isn't, is to humanely end the life of an otherwise end-of--life terminal patient. 

It was recognised as a scandal back in 2014 and it's still a scandal. The Liverpool Care Pathway must be banned. It's unlawful to starve an otherwise healthy person to death and the medical setting should not offer protection from prosecution. 

It's only because of the protection afforded by the medical or care setting and the unwillingness of the Police to investigate that prevents a manslaughter by gross negligence charge being brought.