What is it about?
1.I believe that most of these older people put on the LCP did not have terminal cancer, but had other untreatable diseases of aging (including delirium, depression and most of all dementia). 2. Around 10,000 older people died on the LCP around 2010 in 10 acute medicine district hospitals. They were not treated for infections (including gastrointestinal infections) and were purposefully dehydrated. 3. The Francis enquiry did not compare death certificate cause of death and clinical notes indicating diagnoses (including dementia) before death; including primary care notes.
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Why is it important?
1. Most of the elderly people who died did not have articulate / informed carers. Most of them did not have a next of kin. 2. NHS England offered financial inducements to hospital providers to increase the number of in patients put on the LCP. 3. Senior Doctors (who ordered the LCP placement0 were increasing their chances of getting merit awards (financial bonuses tenured until retirement, then added to pensions). Most left the hospital where deaths occurred and carried on working.
Perspectives
Similar thing happened in Weimar Germany, deprived of nutrition, stopped treating infections, finally given lethal injections to kill. since Francis, heroin continuous infusions were used to terminate lives of older people in a community hospital in England (Gosport scandal). this was after this article was written.
Dr Prasanna Nemichandra de silva
NHS Providers
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Looking back to the future: a personal reflection on the Francis Inquiry, Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry, July 2014, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/pnp.335.
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