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thomas davison

Hospital 'death pathway' bribes will be scrapped: Victory for the Mail as ministers end payments

NHS payments to put patients on Liverpool Care Pathway to be stopped
Care Minister Norman Lamb assured families as part of ongoing inquiry
Admitted people are 'terrified' of the controversial LCP

By Steve Doughty

PUBLISHED: 00:42, 3 April 2013 | UPDATED: 01:05, 3 April 2013

Cash bribes to hospitals to put patients on to the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway will be ended, families have been told.

The disclosure means that the NHS payments � which amount to at least �30million � are likely to be stopped later this year.

A Health Department inquiry is underway into the Pathway, which was originally developed to ease the last days and hours of dying patients.
Intervened: Fiona Bruce MP saved her father from the pathway
Norman Lamb MP

Progress: Fiona Bruce MP, left, saved her father from the pathway which Care Minister Norman Lamb, right, said he acknowledged 'terrified' some people

Care Minister Norman Lamb spoke to families of Pathway patients in Leeds in the first of a series of meetings designed to feed their views into the inquiry, which was launched in February and will report in the summer.

One of those at the meeting was Alyson White, who said her grandmother Marion Haigh died over a period of 12 days after Bradford Royal Infirmary withdrew fluids and food.

The family said 82-year-old Mrs Haigh, who had early stage cervical cancer, was eating and drinking before being put on the Pathway.
How the Mail has reported on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway

How the Mail has reported on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway

Miss White said that Mr Lamb acknowledged that people were �terrified� of the Liverpool Care Pathway.

She added: �He is appalled that people feared they were not getting cared for but put to death in hospital. He said he would definitely be looking to stop any form of financial payment to hospitals to put patients on the Liverpool Care Pathway.

�He said that most definitely he didn�t believe that hospitals should be gaining from patients dying on the LCP.�

Payments to hospitals to hit targets were first revealed by the Daily Mail last autumn.

Some have been paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a year for reaching targets for LCP deaths.

For example, the hospital trust in Blackpool was last year paid �450,000 in return for ensuring 35 per cent of patients who die in hospital are on the LCP. Families have protested that relatives who were not dying have been placed on the Pathway.

Tory MP Fiona Bruce has told how she saved her father�s life when she pulled him off the Pathway.

She had already seen her mother die an �agonising� death when she was put on an end-of-life pathway after brain surgery two years earlier.

Miss Bruce said her 83-year-old father was admitted to a hospital, which she did not name, suffering from an unidentified illness that left him �weak and frail�.

After a few days, a nurse had �almost casually� told her: �He has not long to live. We are putting him on the Liverpool Care Pathway.�

Miss Bruce told a meeting in Parliament there had been �no discussion, no explanation, no consultation� between the family and the hospital staff.

She said that her mother�s �heart-rending� death after being deprived of food and fluids � without her family being consulted � had left her with a sense of �terrible guilt�.

The Congleton MP contacted her sister and they insisted their father was removed from the Pathway. He was placed in a nursing home. �Now, well over six months later that elderly man is very much alive, eating well, getting up when he wants and resting when he doesn�t, enjoying visits from his family,� she said. �He is looking forward to his 85th birthday.�

An end to payments for Pathway targets would free hospitals from the suspicion of taking money in return for the deaths of patients.

Analysts believe the inquiry will also recommend that no patient should be put on the Pathway without either their own consent or that of their closest family.

Another likelihood is a change of name so the tainted title of Liverpool Care Pathway is no longer used.

Mr Lamb said: �It is important that I respect the independence of this review but I have already made clear that I have serious concerns about the use of financial incentives and that they should only ever be used if they demonstrably improve patient care.�

This is premeditated Corporate - Murder ,. So when will there be a criminal investigation and murder charges.?

The government is killing off the old and sick and paying the NHS to do it, my mother and my wifes mother were put on it, now I know they were murdered by the very nurses and doctors who were supposed to try and cure them and they are still doing it.
I remember my mothers death certificate was signed while she was still talking to me the doctor couldnt wait to go away, the doctor was German by the way.

They'll still use it..what an ideal patient - stick a urinary catheter in...and start the graseby syringe full of sedatives and morphine..you dont have to feed them, you dont have to give them a drink, you dont have to speak to them once theyre unconcious...you can just leave them there in the side ward, slowly suffocating until they die. ..hand the relatives a 'bereavement leaflet' and get back to twitter and facebook! What a hideous death for anyone! Short of incorporating an ejector bed that flings them straight into a crematorium oven or skip, how can you possibly 'improve' this Mr. Lamb?????

DO NOT GO TO HOSPITAL IF YOU ARE OLD OR INFIRM THEY WILL MURDER YOU FOR MONEY, IF YOUR STILL OF WORKING AGE YOUR OK BECAUSE YOU PAY TAXES, PENSIONERS TAKE MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT SO THEY DIE.
NURSES ARE NOW THE ANGELS OF DEATH TO THE OLD,