Doctor raises concerns about new care-for-dying guidelines

A Catholic neurologist has criticised the Government’s new guidelines for care for dying people, claiming that they are worse than the current ones they are designed to replace.

Professor Patrick Pullicino, consultant neurologist and professor of clinical neurosciences at Kent and Canterbury Hospital, said that the guidelines of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, known as Nice, “undermined centuries-old evidence-based medical care”.

The guidelines, which were written to replace the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), were published in draft form last week and are open for consultation until September.

In an article for The Daily Telegraph, Professor Pullicino, who is a consultant on care for the elderly, said the guidelines fail to take into account the criticisms of the LCP.

Despite the new guidelines recommending for the first time that patients who are unable to swallow should be given water through clinically assisted means, Professor Pullicino said that this section was a “disaster of misinformation, distortion and ambiguity” because it stated that death is unlikely to be hastened by withholding hydration.

Bishop John Sherrington, who is responsible for the Church’s annual Day for Life, stressed the importance of  how the guidance “might be interpreted, or misinterpreted, in practice”. The English and Welsh bishops will be working with the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in formulating its response to the consultation.

A Catholic lay chaplain, Lynn Bassett, who was involved in producing the working document said she was “delighted” that Nice recognised the importance of spiritual care and had sought advice from chaplains.