21-05-2025
Sunday Times letters: Assisted dying and its effects on the NHS
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Balancing the books is not the only concern in end-of-life care — our priority is, and must remain, quality of life for patients and their loved ones. While Kathleen Stock raises important concerns about the assisted dying bill, her conflation of this legislation with the discontinued 'Liverpool care pathway' (LCP) is misplaced ('So this now counts as equality: making it easier for the poor and the vulnerable to die', comment, May 11).
The LCP did not fail because hospitals were paid to withdraw treatment, fluids or nutrition. These were unintended consequences. Rather, it failed because of serious shortcomings in its implementation, including insufficient staff training, lack of individualised care and — critically — an absence of robust evaluation of its
