Liverpool Care Pathway

If an elderly member of your family or maybe a close friend has a terminal illness, or is taken into hospital because they are unwell, a favourite seems to be a urinary tract infection; you might be told that they are very close to death. You may hear (if they decide to talk to you) mention of the words palliative care, ‘palliative,’ which means to ease pain, usually through the use of drugs. It seems to be used mainly now when patients are at the end of their lives or when there are no options left to cure an illness.

However, it is possible that the patient is not dying but that they are seen as being a candidate for the LIVERPOOL CARE PATHWAY (LCP) because the hospital has decided that this is how some older people (and in some cases not so elderly, so be careful) are to die. At present, some 20,000 people with dementia have been placed on the LCP.

 You should also be aware that doctors have been asked to identify one in every hundred of their patients who are likely, only likely, since it’s impossible to really say, who are going to die over the next 12 months. This fits in with the Gold Care Standard 2005, promoted by the Department of Health and set to save the government more than £1 billion a year. We believe that patients singled out for this are put on a list that finds its way to hospitals and is used to single out people for so-called ‘end of life care.’WHAT THE PAPERS SAY: Put 1 in 100 patients on the death list, GPs told: Frail patients to be asked to choose ‘end of life’ care. Steve Doughty Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2218790/Put-1-100-patients-death-list-GPs-told-Frailest-asked-choose-end-life-care.html

Out of the 450,000 people who die in Britain each year under NHS care, around 29 per cent – 130,000 are patients who were put on the LCP  

• Article (Hospital ‘death pathway’ bribes will be scrapped: Victory for Mail as ministers end payments) MAIL ONLINE 3 APRIL 2013. By Steve Doughty. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2303136/Hospital-death-pathway-bribes-scrapped-Victory-Mail-ministers-end-payments.htmlLiberal Democrat Health minister, Norman Lamb’s response to being caught paying for LCP.“Cash bribes to hospitals to put patients on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway will be ended, families have been told. This disclosure means that the NHS payments – which amount to at least £30 million – are likely to be stopped this year.”For example, the hospital trust in Blackpool was last year paid £450,000 in return for ensuring 35 per cent of patients who die are placed on the LCP.”Relatives and interested parties are in agreement that the ‘payments won’t stop, they will appear under another name or in a different pot of money.