Bad press over Liverpool care pathway has scared patients and doctors, say experts

The media furore over the Liverpool care pathway, the widely used protocol for the care of dying patients that has been branded “euthanasia by the backdoor” in some sections of the press, has scared patients and their families and made some doctors reluctant to use it, experts in palliative care have said.

At a press briefing on Tuesday in London aimed at dispelling the myths surrounding palliative care, Bee Wee, president of the Association for Palliative Medicine, said that although she “would not want to overstate it” she had heard reports from colleagues of relatives frightened by what they had read and of terminally ill patients too afraid to go into hospital. …