A palliative care expert in Scotland has called for an inquiry into
the implementation of the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), a set of
end-of-life guidelines intended to ensure peaceful dying.Responding to suggestions that in some cases the LCP had been used without consulting the patients' families, Sr Rita Dawson, chief executive of the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice in Clydebank, said: "The problem with the LCP is the frailties in its implementation and it is dangerous in the wrong hands, as is any tool. When staff are busy, the first thing to go is communication but that is an inexcusable failure."
The Care Services Minister, Norman Lamb, last week announced that hospitals would be legally obliged to conduct full discussion with families about end-of-life care decisions.