Liverpool Care Pathway - Hello! We've All Got To Die...

We've all got to die, but when we ain't dead yet,  the focus is still on how we live...
Because living matters!

Unnecessary deaths. Blunders compounded by blunders. Or a culture of callousness ingrained?

There is a death cult and culture that places little value on life, obsessed with how we die and unconcerned with how we live.

There is a target-driven, incentive approach from on high that does not produce desired or even desirable outcomes. In the field of clinical governance, those outcomes, as we well know from the experience of Mid-Staffs, have proven to be calamitous and catastrophic.

We ALL have to die one day, you know!

No-one lives forever.

Hello, EoLC...?

As the Dutch nurse said to the unresponsive patient: "When you're dead, you're dead!"

Why are we surprised...?

- The Telegraph

We're all going to die, for heaven's sake..

Dying matters. Let's talk about it.

Hello! Why are we surprised...?

- Mail Online

The vulnerable are always vulnerable.

When the die are loaded against them with Death Pathways; when, from on high, comes the call to downsize care to care LESS and there is constant talk of euthanasia and assisted suicide, then that vulnerability is all the more certain to place them at risk.

- Mail Online

That isn't NICE!

As the Ward Sister said to the Staff Nurse: You improve outcomes with better care, not by withdrawing care.

Are we still surprised...?

Are we really still surprised...?

Unnecessary deaths. Blunders compounded by blunders.

Or a culture of callousness ingrained? A matter of fact attitude to hurt and injury and to death.

The old no longer have worth nor are worthy.

As we keep hearing from on high, they are a burden society can no longer afford. They have outlived their usefulness.

- Mail Online

 The same is said of those  disabled of mind or in body.

 How we view people impacts  directly upon how we treat  them.

 It fosters the sort of  unacceptable behaviour we have seen.

Once that has been decided - that there is a problem - that changes everything.

This is Parliament -

10 million people in the UK are over 65 years old.  The latest projections are for 5½ million more elderly people in 20 years time and the number will have nearly doubled to around 19 million by 2050. 

Within this total, the number of very old people grows even faster.  There are currently three million people aged more than 80 years and this is projected to almost double by 2030 and reach eight million by 2050.  While one-in-six of the UK population is currently aged 65 and over, by 2050 one in-four will be.

This 'problem' of the elderly and the demographics of age impacts on departmental budgets, on pensions, taxes, health... EoLC!

The elderly are perceived to be a problem.

How people are perceived impacts directly on how they are treated...

We are going down a road along which there are no turnings. Let us beware.