LCP

About the LCP

The LCP is an evidence-based, integrated care pathway that was developed in the UK to transfer the hospice model of care into other care settings. The LCP guides health care professionals to deliver best practice care to dying patients and their families/whânau in the last days and hours of life, irrespective of diagnosis or care setting. The eighteen 'goals of care' in the LCP are measurable and facilitate audit and benchmarking of end-of-life care.

The LCP has been implemented into hospitals, residential care facilities, in the individual's own home / community and into hospices in NZ.

The LCP is not the answer to all our needs for care of the dying but is a step in the right direction. A sub-committee of the NZ Palliative Care Working Party has recommended the implementation of last days of life care programmes for people in whom death is expected within days rather than weeks regardless of setting, recognising that dedicated systematic approaches and pathways have a key role in improving end of life care.

The LCP is recognised as a best practice model for care of the dying by the Ministry of Health in NZ. The Health and Disability Commissioner, Ron Paterson, considers the LCP model of care to be consistent with the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights.

"The LCP promotes every consumer's rights to be treated with respect and to be provided with services that take into account the needs, values, and beliefs of different cultural, religious, social and ethnic groups, including the needs, values, and beliefs of Maori"

Ron Paterson, Health and Disability Commissioner
(June 2009)