NHS to scrap Liverpool Care Pathway following review

The government is scrapping the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) following an independent review into the controversial palliative care method.

Baroness Julia Neuberger's report found that although many clinical teams were able to use the LCP to provide dignified and pain-free deaths, there have been too many cases of poor practice, with families and carers not being properly engaged in the patient's care.

As such, the LCP is to be phased out, with all NHS hospitals immediately undertaking clinical reviews of all care given to dying patients and arrangements to be put in place to ensure every patient has a named senior clinician responsible for their end-of-life care.

Care and support minister Norman Lamb said: "We hope the actions we have taken today will reassure patients and their families that everyone coming to the end of their life is getting the best possible care."

The LCP has been criticised for allowing situations to arise in which patients were inappropriately denied food or fluids and will now be phased out over the next six to 12 months.