NHS: Liverpool Care Pathway

Baroness Knight of Collingtree Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether use of the Liverpool care pathway in NHS hospitals is consistent with the outcome of parliamentary debates and votes on euthanasia.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the Liverpool care pathway is an internationally recognised framework to guide the delivery of high-quality care for people in their last hours or days of life. It is not a means of euthanasia and is therefore entirely consistent with the outcome of parliamentary debates and votes on the subject. The Liverpool care pathway helps to ensure that people die with dignity, respect and minimum distress.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware, however, that although the Liverpool care pathway is certainly not intended to be a tool for euthanasia, that is what a growing number of people now believe it to be, judging by their own experiences? Is he aware that consultants are not always informed that their patients have been put on this pathway, and that invariably neither those patients nor their relatives are told? Will he look into what is happening, since the very name “pathway” indicates that they are shortly to face induced death, as indeed they do?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I recognise that some people who have been on the Liverpool care pathway have received poor care. The pathway is not of itself a guarantor of best-quality care. It has been consistently made clear in the guidance for the implementation of the Liverpool care pathway that it is in no way a replacement for clinical judgment and should not be treated as a simple tick-box exercise. Rather, it should be seen as a useful framework to guide the delivery of care in a way that complements the skill and expertise of the practitioner using it.