Doctors who abused Liverpool Care Pathway face disciplinary action Financial incentives for NHS staff who place patients on the pathway are expected to be described as "totally unacceptable." The care pathway was originally developed at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and the city's Marie Curie hospice to ease suffering by setting out principles for how the dying should be treated. It has since been introduced in the majority of NHS hospitals and involves the withdrawal of treatment and even fluids from patients assessed to approaching the end of life. NHS protocols state that the patient, if possible, and their families should be consulted before someone is placed on the pathway. But the system has been mired in controversy amid claims that it has been used actively to hasten death. In some cases, family members were not consulted before food and fluids were withheld from patients. Some patients have even gone on to recover after being placed on the pathway supposedly because they were on the brink of death. Every year 130,000 patients are placed on the LCP, which usually involves heavy sedation with morphine or similar drugs.