A better path to care Baroness Neuberger’s palliative care would put the needs of the patient first. The Liverpool Care Pathway was devised to extend the utmost dignity to those nearing the end of their days – to strike the most appropriate balance between doctors’ duty to do everything possible to extend their patients’ lives, and the need to make the end as painless as possible when it was clear that nothing more could be done. Yet while the intentions were noble, the execution was often horrifically flawed. As Baroness Neuberger says in her report on the pathway’s operation, it ensured that care for the dying became a “tick-box exercise”, especially since careless, callous or overworked staff frequently misunderstood or simply misused the rules. With hospitals given financial incentives to put patients on the pathway, palliative care all too often became a one-way street, in which the elderly were pushed towards their deaths – sometimes by being deprived of fluids and nutrition, or kept on constant pain medication – irrespective of their or their families’ needs and wishes. telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10180223/A-better-path-to-care.html
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 08:50:45 +0000