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End of life
Liverpool Care Pathway: life-ending pathway or palliative care pathway?
  1. Mohamed Y Rady1,
  2. Joseph L Verheijde2
  1. 1Department of Critical Care Medicine, Mayo Clinic Hospital, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
  2. 2Department Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Mohamed Y Rady, Department of Critical Care Medicine, Mayo Clinic Hospital, 5777 East mayo Blvd, Phoenix, Arizona 85054, USA; rady.mohamed{at}mayo.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2014-102314

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    Wrigley disagreed with the decision to phase out the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) from clinical practice in end-of-life care of terminally ill and dying patients in England.1 The decision was made by the Department of Health based on the recommendation of an independent review by Neuberger.2 In his analysis, Wrigley outlined some of the potential harms to patients from indiscriminately applying the LCP in clinical practice. The Neuberger Review outlined some of the fatal flaws in the LCP: (1) life-ending decisions were made in patients who might not have been imminently dying; (2) basic medical care was withheld or withdrawn (including nutrition and hydration) early in the end-of-life trajectory; and (3) pharmacological means of symptom control were …

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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