A HOSPITAL has apologised after putting a pensioner on a controversial end-of-life plan without informing her family.
Josephine Dunn, 73, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, was put on the Liverpool Care Pathway when she was taken to the Queen's Medical Centre last Saturday with a urinary tract infection.
The pathway is a medical practice which outlines care options for someone who is dying – often involving reducing food and water for the patient.
Husband Stuart Dunn, 68, rushed to hospital after hearing of his wife's illness, and says he only became aware she had been put on the end-of-life plan when he overheard nurses talking about it. "As soon as I realised what was going on I asked for her to be taken off it and the mood immediately changed. People started apologising," he said.
Mr Dunn's wife woke up the next day, recovered and has returned to her care home in Sherwood.
Mr Dunn, of Top Valley, said: "An apology isn't good enough. I first overheard she was on the pathway from hearing nurses talking. No one told me directly. I don't want people to go through what I had to, they should at least be informed."
The Post has been given the document that nurses or doctors would have to fill in when putting somebody on the pathway.
It states on the first page: "Good comprehensive clear communication is pivotal and all decisions leading to a change in care delivery should be communicated to the patient where appropriate and to the relative or carer."
Dr Stephen Fowlie, Medical Director at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We have apologised to Mr Dunn for the breakdown in communication in his wife's care. The Liverpool Care Pathway is used at NUH as established best practice for guiding the treatment of patients at the end of their life.
"However this decision should not have been enacted without discussion with Mr Dunn, who arrived at the hospital a short time after his wife."
He added that NUH was committed to ensuring relatives played a full part in decisions about a patient's care at the end of life.