Liverpool Care Pathway - "An Apology Isn't Good Enough"

The audacity of arrogance of doctors who, like Caesar, may give the thumbs up or the thumbs down to those in their care is beyond belief.

Bishop Egan advises:

 If you “hear people speaking about ‘quality of life’, be on your guard”. 

“Insist on being notified before the patient is placed on the LCP and that you are involved in the decisions being taken.

Clearly vigilance is called for...

Mr. Dunn overheard medical staff talking and the word "pathway" being mentioned in reference to his wife, Josephine.

Josephine, 73, suffers from Alzheimer's disease. This being the year of Dave Cameron's dementia CQUIN, that may have been a contributory factor in their decision to put Mrs. Dunn on the Pathway.

Mr Dunn, from Nottingham, fumed: 'I got a call saying you had better get to the hospital. She was in a holding bay off A&E and then she was put in a side ward. 

'The doctor came to me and said no chance at all that she is going to pull through.

'She came around Saturday lunchtime and I gave her some water and some yoghurt. I never saw another doctor until the Sunday.

'On Sunday I just happened to hear a doctor saying to a nurse "I'll have to take her off the Pathway".

When he asked a nurse to clarify the situation, she said: 'Yes, I thought you knew.'

A side ward... The weekend...

Patients being placed on then taken off the LCP is not just a matter of making a wrong diagnosis, as if that was not bad enough; it is patchy care which can only be highly detrimental to the patient's well-being.

Mr Dunn said: 'As soon as I realised what was going on, I asked for her to be taken off it and the mood immediately changed.  

'If she had died Saturday morning, I wouldn't have known she was on Pathway. I had to tell my daughter and she had to bring the grandkids up to say goodbye to her. 

'In my mind, once you reach that certain age, they don't seem to care, you're just a number. To me, it's wrong, they just decided that's it, she has no chance.' 

Mrs Dunn started developing dementia ten years ago and five years ago moved to a care home when her round-the-clock care needs became too much for her husband to cope with on his own. 

Mrs Dunn, who has one daughter Cara, 33, and two grandchildren, is recovering at the care home.

This is Mail Online -

These disgraceful people...

Is this, truly, the next generation of doctors…?

This is BMA -
BMA

Students condemn press attacks on Liverpool Care Pathway

6 April 2013

Medical students condemned damaging media coverage of the Liverpool Care Pathway and the impact it had on patients approaching the end of their lives.

They unanimously agreed that, in certain situations, withdrawing life-prolonging treatment was generally well accepted under the pathway.

However, cynical articles in newspapers suggesting it was a money-making exercise had a damaging effect on palliative care, the doctor-patient relationship and the NHS as a whole.

Oxford fifth year James Kennedy said: ‘It is not right that patients should be terrified of going into hospital at the end of their lives or indeed at any time.’

The Liverpool Care Pathway was set up to transfer hospice-style standards of palliative care to hospital and other settings. It aims to support but not replace clinical judgement, and should be tailored to each patient’s individual physical, social, spiritual and psychological needs.

Read Dying with dignity

These disgraceful attacks on the integrity of those who have suffered at their hands will not go unremembered.

It is not right, but people are terrified of going into hospital - and rightly so! Good Sir, have you not read the awful, awful, disgraceful things that go on in our hospitals? Does your prejudice so blind you to the truth?

The link, above, is to a BMA defence of the LCP. It doesn't say which version. It describes why LCP was set up, with a link to Marie Curie, so one might think they are referring to the previous discredited versions...

The linked article does discuss the review and concedes that all is not as it is painted to be.

It is very frightening, however, to see these young men and young ladies, fresh on the path of a medical career, brandishing their works of Chairman Ellershaw as another generation once did the works of Chairman Mao.