The tragic death of Laura Jane Booth.

 

Laura Jane Booth

I remember the huge public controversy around the Liverpool End of Life Care Pathway. There are now similar concerns about the Assisted Dying Bill that is currently going through Parliament. The inquiry that was conducted into the Liverpool Care Pathway, by Baroness Neuberger in 2013, found that NHS hospital trusts were being given financial inducements to put some patients on palliative end of life care.

This article refers to the case of a 21-year-old woman called Laura Jane Booth, who was put on the end-of-life care pathway, after being admitted to hospital in 2016 for a routine eye operation. She died three weeks later. Laura who had the genetic disorder called Patau's syndrome, had death by natural causes, written on her death certificate. However, a coroner's inquest in 2021, found there had been a "gross failure of her care" and that "malnutrition contributed to her death."

Her parents said that Laura had been denied food for weeks while in hospital and that they had no idea that she'd been put on the end-of-life pathway. A report into Laura's death, found the hospital had failed to take her mental capacity into account in clear breach of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

An inquest into Laura’s death was only opened when a journalist contacted the coroner.