I AM very concerned to read of a family's upset surrounding their mother's death and the Liverpool Care Pathway programme (Times, November 15). 

It appears from the internet that there is considerable support amongst the medical profession, hospices, charities and care homes for the LCP programme. There is also much criticism from families who have watched their loved ones die in this way and have seen them suffer.

It seems wholly wrong in principle that a decision can be made by the medical profession to end a life in advance of a predicted death since there is always room for human error in the medical decision-making and little understanding of individuals who have not yet lost the will to live.  

It seems utterly inhumane to refuse a drink or a little nourishment to somebody who is asking for help unless there are very clear medical reasons that to give a drink or food would actually cause death.

Dame Cicely Saunders is well known for initiating hospices for the terminally ill such that the dying could be and has been managed with the greatest possible skill in the management of pain and the patient's spiritual and emotional needs. Hospices across the country have developed a very high reputation for this over many decades. 

There must now be very great concern that the idea of the LCP is being adopted wholesale by professionals nationally who may have little skilled experience of dying patients but who believe they are acting in the patient's best interests.

I would encourage everyone who is concerned about this issue to write to their MP immediately so that the law is made very clear about the application of the LCP. 

The current proposals by the Department of Health require that relatives must be consulted. It seems to me that two medical professionals and a magistrate or specialist professional should also be required to endorse such a decision, and that such decisions should be monitored after death through official channels.

Gillian Hiles

Tavistock

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