Liverpool Care Pathway - Rebranding

Turn again; turn again Whittington Lamb, 'tis ne'er too late for the leopard to change his spots!

This is Your Gibraltar TV -

14 Jan

Jan 14 - GHA to Adopt Locally Tweaked Version of Liverpool Care Pathway

During this morning’s session of Parliament, Health Minister Dr. John Cortes outlined the GHA’s plan to adopt a slightly tweaked version of the Liverpool Care Pathway plan for terminally ill patients. The UK Care Pathway covers palliative care options for patients in their final days of life. Dr. Cortes explained, in an answer to Shadow Health Minister Isobel Ellul-Hammond, that the GHA would implement the plan, whilst leaving room for adjustment to the original pathway, in order to adapt it to local needs.

Dr. Cortes insisted that training would be necessary in order to maintain quality of care and dignify patients. He noted that families of patients must be involved in the strategy. The current care pathway is carried out mostly by the Cancer Society in Gibraltar. Due to the community’s ‘tight knit’ quality, Dr. Cortes explained that the plan would be tweaked slightly.

The Liverpool Care Pathway has raised a fair deal of controversy following press reports that claimed elderly patients were placed onto the scheme without giving documented proof that they wanted to. Statistics claim that the initiative is used by 85% of NHS trusts, within the UK.

The Gibraltar Health Authority (GHA) has "tweaked" the Liverpool Care Pathway for adoption locally. They needn't have bothered.

The review, as Earl Howe states, is not into the practices and procedures of the LCP but into how it has been used in practice.

Dr. Cortes would have done better to have "tweaked" the name of the LCP rather than its protocol and saved Mr. Lamb's "experts" the time and the effort.

How about: The Silence of the Lamb...?

London Liverpool calling: this is London Liverpool Calling...

This is going to cause a lot of problems worldwide. For example, what will the 'National Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP) Office New Zealand' now call itself?

Rebranding can be a very expensive affair.