Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient

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The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP) was a care pathway in the United Kingdom (excluding Wales) covering palliative care options for patients in the final days or hours of life. It was developed to help doctors and nurses provide quality end-of-life care, to transfer quality end-of-life care from the hospice to hospital setting. The LCP is no longer in routine use after public concerns regarding its nature. Alternative methodologies for Advance care planning are now in place to ensure patients are able to have dignity in their final hours of life. ^[1] Hospitals were also provided cash incentives to achieve targets for the number of patients placed on the LCP.^[2]

The Liverpool Care Pathway was developed by Royal Liverpool University Hospital and the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute in the late 1990s for the care of terminally ill cancer patients. The LCP was then extended to include all patients deemed dying. Its inflexible application by nursing staff of Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust was subject to scrutiny after the poor care delivered to a relative of Rosie Cooper MP.

While the initial reception was positive, it was heavily criticised in the media in 2009 and 2012 following a nationwide roll-out. In July 2013, the Department of Health released a statement which stated the use of the LCP should be "phased out over the next 6-12 months and replaced with an individual approach to end of life care for each patient".^[3] However, The Daily Telegraph reported that the programme was just rebranded and that its supposed replacement would "perpetuate many of its worst practices, allowing patients to suffer days of dehydration, or to be sedated, leaving them unable to even ask for food or drink."^[4]