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News items on 'Palliation And Terminal Care'
NHS manager left £800,000 debts
(BBC 18/11/2009)
An NHS manager who oversaw care for terminally ill cancer patients in Birmingham and part of Staffordshire left her organisation with debts of more than £800,000 after overspending on advertising, consultants and printing costs, it has been revealed. Melanie Young had been working as the manager of the palliative care network, part of the Pan-Birmingham Cancer Network, which links together all the city's hospitals, trusts and hospices that provide cancer services.
NHS communication failure 'rife'
(BBC 05/11/2009)
Poor communication between hospital staff and with their patients is far too common and deeply damaging, experts warn. Patients left out of the loop and staff clocking on and off without a handover was commonplace, a confidential review found. The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death looked at the care of over 3,000 terminal patients. It revealed two-fifths received "sub-standard" care.
Liverpool Pathway protects the dignity of the dying
(Telegraph 20/10/2009)
When properly used the Liverpool Care Pathway does not hasten death writes Tom Hughes-Hallett the Chief Executive of Marie Curie Cancer Care. the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying - a model that takes the philosophy and practice developed by experts in hospices, where Britain leads the world, and sets out detailed guidance for doctors and nurses who care for dying patients in hospital. It ensures that the patient is comfortable, free from pain and distressing symptoms such as breathlessness.
German doctor tried for 13 deaths
(BBC 20/10/2009)
A German doctor has pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of 13 cancer patients who died from suspected overdoses of pain-killing drugs. A tearful Mechthild Bach, 59, said her actions to lessen her patients' pain had not shortened their lives. She said all the patients had been close to death, and that she had been helping them to live in dignity. It is the second time she has stood trial; a first trial collapsed in 2008 when one of the judges fell ill.
Law to care for dying 'supported'
(BBC 14/09/2009)
Proposed legislation requiring Scottish health boards to provide specialist care for the terminally ill has won a high level of public support, it has been claimed. A backbench bill being spearheaded by SNP MSP Gil Paterson aims to secure high-quality palliative care on the NHS for anyone who needs it. The plans have already attracted cross-party support. They were brought forward amid concern over varying levels of palliative care across Scotland.
'Crisis' over terminally-ill care
(BBC 03/09/2009)
Official guidelines are causing a crisis in care of the terminally ill and growing anger among patients' families, medical experts say. The advice allows food and fluids to be withdrawn from patients, who are then continuously sedated, if they are judged to be close to death. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph the six doctors and campaigners criticise a "tick-box approach" to care
(The Scotsman 30/08/2009)
THE NHS in England has apologised after writing to a dead man to say sorry for leaving him to die in agony three-and-a-half-years after he died. Tom Milner, 76, was not given his prescribed pain-relieving morphine for terminal leukaemia in his last two days, and lay in agony at the NHS Palliative Care Ward at Sheffield's Northern General Hospital, his family say. The case was highlighted earlier this week by the Patients Association in a report on the treatment of the elderly by NHS nurses.
End-of-life care
(BBC 12/08/2009)
Is sedation used as an alternative to euthanasia? Polls suggest that while a majority of the public would support a change in the law to allow assisted dying, most doctors are against it. But there is evidence that some clinicians may already be using continuous deep sedation (CDS), as a form of "slow euthanasia". Research suggests use of CDS in Britain is particularly high - accounting for about one in six of all deaths.
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(Daily Express 28/07/2009)
Just as Anne Barker's father began to slip away, a nurse rushed into the room. "Keep speaking," she urged Anne and the rest of her family. "Hearing is the last sense to go. Keep talking to him and say your goodbyes." "How she knew that he was slipping away at that very moment I have no idea," says Anne. "Our attention was all on dad and she seemed to appear from nowhere as his breathing began to slow. We all looked at her, a bit startled, and then all of us said: 'Goodbye, Dad, goodbye...'
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