Catalogue of abuse that killed off the Care Pathway: Ministers acted after inquiry found vulnerable patients were so dehydrated they had to suck on sponges Review of Liverpool Care Pathway by Baroness Neuberger was damning Minister Norman Lamb will announce it will be axed within 12 months Scrapped: Lib Dem health minister Norman Lamb will announce the end of the Liverpool Care Pathway today Ministers decided to scrap the Liverpool Care Pathway after a damning inquiry found frail and vulnerable patients were so dehydrated they were desperately sucking on wet sponges. A shocking catalogue of abuse found that some relatives were forced to give their loved ones water secretly when the nurse was out of the room - because medical staff had forbidden it. The review by Baroness Neuberger, extracts from which have been seen by the Daily Mail, found examples of patients being so heavily drugged that they could "never communicate again," meaning their grief-stricken families never got to say goodbye. And some claimed their relatives had been given a "chemical cosh" cocktail of drugs, with the express intent of hastening their deaths from dehydration. As the Mail reported on Saturday, Lib Dem health minister Norman Lamb will announce today that the controversial pathway, under which life-saving treatment is removed if a person is deemed close to death, will be scrapped within 12 months. Every year, 130,000 patients have been placed on the pathway, which usually involves heavy sedation with morphine or similar drugs. The Mail has been leading a campaign against it, highlighting examples of doctors putting patients on the pathway without asking for consent. We also revealed how some hospitals were being paid six-figure "bribes" to meet targets about the numbers of patients on the LCP - leading to fears that doctors were put under pressure to use the pathway. Following our revelations, Mr Lamb asked Baroness Neuberger to carry out a review into the controversial pathway - in the face of opposition from the medical establishment. The report, More Care - Less Pathway, says that although the LCP was working well in many places, there were too many examples of abuse for it to continue. It will be replaced with more individualised care packages, and all incentive payments to hospitals will be scrapped. Damning: Baroness Neuberger carried out a review into how the LCP was implemented Under the pathway, nurses use wet sponges to moisten the mouths of dying patients after food and drink is withdrawn. The fact that some patients were seen sucking on the sponges indicates that they were very uncomfortable and were desperate for water - and perhaps not as close to inevitable death as thought. It raises uncomfortable memories of Mid Staffs hospital, where a patient on an understaffed A&E was so dehydrated he was forced to drink from a vase. The report concludes that in too many cases, the LCP is used as a "tick-box exercise" rather than looking at what the dying patients actually need. Some (people) talked about their relatives sucking on the sponges that they had been given to wet the patient's mouth in an attempt to get fluid, when fluids had been deliberately withheld. Report by Baroness Neuberger into the Liverpool Care Pathway "Where care is already poor, the pathway is sometimes used as a tick-box exercise, and good care for the dying patient or their relatives or cares may be absent," the report says. Whether true or not, many families suspected that deaths had been hastened by over-prescription of strong painkilling drugs or sedatives. Baroness Neuberger spoke to dozens of people about the care their loved ones had received during their final hours. Some reported "disobeying instructions from medical staff to withhold fluids" - instead secretly giving them water when the nurse had left the room. The report says: "Some talked about their relatives sucking on the sponges that they had been given to wet the patient's mouth in an attempt to get fluid, when fluids had been deliberately withheld." It finds that in many cases, opiates were given in too strong a dose, making the patient "too drowsy and confused to be able to communicate and ask for water." And it adds: "There was a feeling that the drugs had been used as a "chemical cosh" that reduced people's desire to accept food or drink. There have been too many coming forward to the review panel to say they left their loved one in a calm and peaceful state, able to communicate, for a short time, or with a doctor or a nurse for a check-up only to return and find a syringe driver had been put in place and their loved one was never able to communicate again. One family was left with the impression that their relative had been overmedicated so that he would die from dehydration. The Daily Mail has led the way in exposing shocking cases of abuse of vulnerable people on the Liverpool Care Pathway. Here are some of the chilling examples: Olive Goom died alone aged 85 after hospital staff failed to tell her family she was being put on the pathway Olive Goom, 85, died alone at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital after doctors failed to tell relatives they were ending her life. Staff reassured relatives on the phone just hours before her death in February 2011 that there was no urgent need to visit - even though doctors had already removed tubes providing vital food and fluids. Her family discovered that she had died only when her niece, Marion Hebbourne, went to visit her and found she was already being prepared for the mortuary. Thomas James died on the LCP at home after he was given sedatives The family of former soldier Thomas James said he was put on the pathway at his home without consulting them. The 90-year-old, who lived near Braintree in Essex, had cancer but insisted he was not ready to die until after his granddaughter's wedding. But his family said he died at home in October last year after he was given sedatives by a district nurse. The next day they were unable to wake him to give him food or drink and he fell into a diabetic coma. Andy Flanagan was 'rescued' from the care pathway and lived for another five weeks Andy Flanagan, 48, was said to be severely brain damaged and close to death after a cardiac arrest. His family gathered at his bedside last June to say their goodbyes at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn, Norfolk, after it withdrew fluids and said it was going to let him "slip away." But when Mr Flanagan's sister, who is a nurse, gently moved him to change his bloodstained sheets, he started to murmur words. Every ten minutes relatives gave him drops of water before doctors eventually agreed to put him back on a drip. He was able to return home, lived for another month and was able to say farewell to his loved ones. His sisters called the LCP a "licence to kill." Announcing the decision to scrap the LCP in the Mail on Saturday, Mr Lamb said any replacement will definitely not be called a "pathway." "I took the decision to launch this review because concerns were raised with me about how patients were being cared for and how families were being treated during this difficult and sensitive time," he said. We need a whole new system of better end of life care tailored to the needs of individual patients and involving their families. It emerged late last year that as many as 60,000 of the patients placed on the scheme were never asked for their consent, or their families were not asked. Many found out by accident, and others recovered fully after relatives found out and got their loved ones taken off the pathway. Any new system will ensure that patients and relatives are properly consulted.