Police probe doctors over 'care pathway' death of grandmother who was wrongly told she had terminal cancer

Britain's now discredited "Liverpool care pathway" was in reality a death pathway, used to get rid of hundreds of thousands of the elderly. Under it, the elderly died of thirst while bombed out of their brain with morphine

Police are investigating the death of a woman who, her family claim, was left to die in hospital after she was wrongly told she had terminal cancer.

Greater Manchester Police are to review the evidence into the death of grandmother-of-six Margaret Hesketh, 70.

Her family claim that ten days after she was admitted to hospital, doctors told them she was riddled with cancer and there was little they could do. They say Mrs Hesketh was put on a ‘care pathway’ in which fluid and nutrition drips were removed. She died in November, six days after the family says the regime began.

Doctors at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan have always rejected the family’s claims. The area NHS trust says it stopped using the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway in 2014. The treatment manages the last few days of a person’s life. In some circumstances, medication, food and water are withdrawn.

At an inquest in April, assistant coroner Rachel Griffin found that Mrs Hesketh had died of natural causes rather than malnutrition, and there was no neglect.

But the coroner said she was ‘disappointed’ to discover that Mrs Hesketh’s doctors had found out she was not suffering from cancer but failed to tell her or her family.

Mrs Hesketh went in to the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan, above, on October 28 last year with an infected bed sore and suspected pneumonia

Before the inquest, police ruled out an investigation.

But Detective Chief Inspector Michael Fraser has now written to Mrs Hesketh’s daughter, Karen Masters, 45, telling her: ‘I am willing to undertake a review of evidence to provide an independent perspective on the outcome of the investigation and the subsequent inquest.’

Last night, Mrs Masters said: ‘At last somebody is listening to me. All I want is the truth.’ She said her mother, who was admitted to hospital with an infected bedsore and suspected pneumonia, had resembled ‘a sparrow in the corner of the bed’ in her final days.

A spokesman for Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘We believe that we did all we could for Margaret Hesketh while she was under our care.’

Original report here

(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here