Experts are again speaking out to demand the highest possible level of supervision for patients on the Liverpool Care Pathway.
Under the pathway patients can be denied water or nutrition, may be heavily sedated, denied treatment to prolong life and not be given unecessary tests or treatment. The pathway was designed in the 1990's to ease the distress of the last hours of the dying patient and presently requires only one duty doctor to approve it's use.
Twenty bodies including Royal College of Practioners, Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Nursing, Age UK and the Alzheimer's Society are now calling for a change to be made whereby at least two medical staff, one of whom should be the most senior on duty should assess the patients. Help should be sought from all staff involved in the patients care as it is not always easy to to tell whether someone is very close to death. They also added people should be involved in decisions about their care and families and carers should be included in the decision making.
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