Act to stop Liverpool Care Pathway being used as "backdoor euthanasia"

My colleague, Paul Tully, SPUC's general secretary, has issued the following stark appeal this afternoon concerning the Liverpool Care Pathway.

Please Act Now to stop the Liverpool Care Pathway being used as 

“backdoor euthanasia” for NHS patients

A number of families have spoken out in the media about the abuses their loved ones have suffered as a result of being put on the Liverpool Care Pathway in hospitals and nursing homes.

Several senior doctors have publicly criticised the use of the Pathway, asserting that it can mean hastening death for vulnerable patients. Patients are dying as a result of the Pathway – not simply from their underlying conditions.

In the face of these criticisms, the government asked Baroness Julia Neuberger to chair a “review” panel. The panel is receiving submissions (letters, emails, etc) from anyone with concerns about the Liverpool Care Pathway. Anyone can make a submission, but the experience of those who have been affected is particularly important (such as patients or relatives, healthcare staff, chaplains, visitors, etc).

The deadline for submissions is Friday, 5 April 2013.

Send submissions to:
Liverpool Care Pathway Review
Department of Health
Richmond House
79 Whitehall
London SW1A 2NS

or by email to:
liverpoolcarepathwayreview@dh.gsi.gov.uk

The review panel has not issued a questionnaire or pro-forma for submissions, so you can write to them in any format you wish, but we give some suggestions below about how to set out your concerns.

The composition of the Neuberger review panel includes leading pro-euthanasia advocates – David Aaronovitch and Professor Emily Jackson; and Baroness Neuberger herself has said (in the annual Tyburn lecture in 2011) that she had “ ... some sympathy with the idea that that people who are already terminally ill and finding their situation unbearable, that they should be given the wherewithal to take their own lives ... ”

It is important that they receive clear statements defending vulnerable people (especially the elderly) from attack, whether by medical abuses or by having the law amended or ignored so that vulnerable people can have their lives deliberately shortened by act or by omission. Please point out that the review panel has no brief to recommend weakening legal protection for the lives of patients.

Contact me at johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk for SPUC's briefing on preparing a submission for the Liverpool Care Pathway Review.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy

Money more valuable than human life, says Baroness Warnock

Daniel Blackman, a researcher for SPUC, has sent me a report on last Tuesday evening's Intelligence Squared debate on assisted suicide. You can read Dan's full report on the SPUC website, but below are a few details.

The motion of the debate was ‘Assisted Suicide should be legalised: the terminally ill should have the legal right to be helped to end their lives.’ Speaking for the motion was:

• Emily Jackson, professor of law at the London School of Economics
• Baroness Mary Warnock, moral philosopher, and
• Debbie Purdy, the assisted suicide campaigner with multiple sclerosis.

Speaking against the motion was:

• Lord Alex Carlile QC, barrister
• Patrick Stone, Macmillan Reader in Palliative Medicine, St George’s University of London; and
• Lord Richard Harries, former Anglican bishop of Oxford.

The debate was chaired by Sue Lawley, journalist and broadcaster.

The debate is available for free on itunes, which means readers can also listen to the debate for themselves.

Two votes were taken, one before and one after the debate. The results were:

before

• for: 408
• against: 110
• don’t know: 117

after:

• for: 406
• against: 208
• don’t Know: 34

So a large number of the 'don’t knows' decided to vote against against assisted suicide.

Dan also reports that Baroness Warnock said that, that unlike gold and platinum, life does not have value in itself. Her claim reminds me of Psalm 134:15-17, which reads:

"The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the works of men's hands. They have a mouth, but they speak not: they have eyes, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not: neither is there any breath in their mouths."

I found Baroness Warnock's claim - which says effectively that money is more valuable than life - truly frightening. This is the same materialistic attitude that resulted in the lives of countless millions of slaves being sacrificed in the name of profit.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Join SPUC's Facebook group
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy