Liverpool Care Pathway - The Many Pathways To The Perdition That Awaits Us [Supplemental]

When financial constraints impact finite resources, moral considerations may be sidelined...

There is a Communitarian justification for this, that the greater good be served.

There is a social and moral consequence to this. This is important.

This is Cornwall reports that the Cornish Nazi was given a police escort as he attended the East Sub-Area Planning Committee in Liskeard this week. Protests have been organised against Cllr. Brewer because of statements he has made. (Read - A Further Step Into The Abyss)

There are people just like Cllr. Brewer all over the country. These are hard-working, committed Councillors attempting to balance the budget to do such basic things like keeping the street lights burning.The time will come when a choice that provides 'dignity in dying' will seem a humane choice, a choice that becomes an easier and easier choice to make.

Does Justice wear her blindfold so she may impart justice without prejudice or so that she may not see the consequence of her judgement...?

This is an extract of the full transcript of the Collin Brewer interview with John Pring provided by Disability News Service and published by This is Cornwall -

Cllr. Brewer:

“I had just been to a council meeting which was discussing finance. When you are talking about having to close toilets, facilities for everyone and perhaps the coastal footpath for everyone, then I have got to question individual budgets to individual people.”

“I have heard of terrific amounts of money being spent on specific individuals.”

“The fact is that I think to keep 10 toilets open would cost about £250,000. That’s a service to the whole of the community. This is my concern. It is a balance which has to be made.”

“As opposed to a service to one person. I know for instance of a lady with two dogs and she has three carers and she gets around, she has a frame. These carers are principally to walk the dogs. Little things like that that people are aware of. It makes me frustrated because I tend to think that it is money that could be better spent on someone else.”

“It is bound to be a concern. Because we are having to get rid of libraries, sports centres, and not maintain even our roads.”

The Councillor has made his choice. His comments are well known. How those comments pan out into the actual practicalities of enactment he has not gone into.

All over this land, there is much agonising in the
Chamber -

“Social care is one of the things that you lie awake at night worrying about,” said Sir Merrick Cockell, the Conservative leader of Kensington and Chelsea council in London, who is chairman of the LGA.
“It is one of the most serious responsibilities that we have got and we take that very seriously but we know that we can’t really restrict the spending any more.
“Most of us are pretty well at the 'critical’ level, as far as criteria for care go, we know we’ve got an ageing population and care is becoming more expensive, all the pressures are there.”
He added: “If Government doesn’t give us what we hope on sharing and integration at national and local budget level, the services like libraries, like leisure centres, like the way that parks are kept or indeed street lights being on all through the night, councils will have to look at saving money on those things.”
In its submission to the Chancellor the LGA discloses that it knows of 86 councils in England which already estimate that their projected income will meet less than 85 per cent of their spending commitments in three years time.
It says that internal research shows that almost two thirds of social services chiefs are considering further reducing the number of people receiving care – something which has already been tightened up in recent years.
Half of them actively expect to see poorer access for elderly and disabled people within the next two years.
   - The Telegraph

LGiU (Local Government Information Unit) have reported on the role of the local authority in EoLC (end of life care).

The Pathways are being rolled out.

The Pathways, which bear many names, have stepped from the grand halls of Whitehall into ward room and nursing home; out of Council Chamber into surgery and home...

And into street -

This has been touched upon in these pages. (Read - A Worrying Development)

This is Marie Curie -

Everyone is now on board.

There are those who, thankfully, agonise in Chamber over the detail of a word, the nuance of a phrase, and even tweet their concerns on Twitter. (Read - The Many Pathways To The Perdition That Awaits Us)

What became the Holocaust had small, persuasively easy to accept and reasonable beginnings. It should be remembered that these ideas were not confined to that country with which they have become generally associated, but were held worldwide.

There were those who were easily persuaded. There were those who looked away and those who chose not to see. They weren't all Nazis.

They didn't necessarily see themselves as Nazis. That's how deceptively easy the arguments were to accept. Society became steeped in them. The ideas were floated. They did not seem as outrageous as they had seemed. That was how a solution became the Final Solution...