The Liverpool Care Pathway has been used for years, “So what has caused the current hysteria,” asks Dr. Kate Granger.
“I seem to recollect that a few years ago the approach was criticised by some eminent doctors in the national press but after a couple of articles and a little disquiet the debate simmered down and we as practising clinicians continued to use what is considered the framework for best practice when delivering end of life care.”
“So what has happened in those few years?” she asks “The LCP itself has not really changed. Perhaps the document has been developed a little but the fundamental principles of care remain the same. Maybe it is society’s expectations that have changed.”
Granger says that the irresponsible handling by some of the media has left clinicians in a difficult and worrying place. “As a doctor I would hope that the relationship I have with my patients and their families is based on a solid foundation of trust; a trust that I am there solely to act in their best interests and to care for them. As a patient myself I trust my own GP and Oncologist implicitly. But when the press and sometimes the politicians start to undermine this trust then we are left in an extremely worrying and dark situation.”
The Liverpool Care Pathway “is an integrated care pathway that is used at the bedside to drive up sustained quality of the dying in the last hours and days of life.”
Kate Granger is a medical doctor who has terminal cancer. The treatment has been arduous and unsuccessful so Kate took the decision to stop it and, returned to her job as a hospital registrar at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield. UL
Kate Granger’s Blog:
drkategranger A doctor & terminally ill cancer patient musing about life & death
Image: MailOnline