NICE issues draft guideline on end of life care

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has issued a draft guideline on how dying patients should be cared for in their final days, to provide much needed guidance for clinicians after the Liverpool Care Pathway was abolished in 2013.1

Use of the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient was dropped in favour of individualised care plans after a government commissioned review found serious failings in how the pathway was being implemented.2 The review found that the pathway was being applied as a set of rigid instructions by staff who had not been properly trained and that hospitals were rewarded financially for using the pathway, creating the impression that they were hastening death for …