Report warns doctors snub families of the terminally ill amid growing use of 'death pathway'

A national audit of 4,000 patients put on the Liverpool Care Pathway last year has found that more than a quarter of families are not told when life support is withdrawn from terminally-ill loved ones. Under the Pathway, doctors can withdraw food and fluids from terminally-ill patients and sedate them continuously until death. Peter Millard, emeritus professor of geriatrics at the University of London, said: 'The risk as this is rolled out across the country is that elderly people with chronic conditions like Parkinson's or respiratory disorders may be dismissed as dying when they could still live for some time ... Only when death is unavoidable should you start withdrawing treatment.' Daily Mail