Developing the Liverpool Care Pathway for the dying child

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Palliative Care
• Clinical Documentation Auditing

Background:

• Child death is infrequent in Western societies, often following intensive treatment.
• Providing consistent, appropriate care for dying children and their families presents a clinical challenge.
• Existing documentation of care for dying children in pediatric units shows inconsistencies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the challenge of inconsistent care documentation for dying children.
• To develop an integrated care pathway for pediatric end-of-life care.
• To improve the delivery and recording of optimal care for terminally ill children and their families.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective audit of care documentation for dying children in two English pediatric units.
• Development of an integrated care pathway.
• Adaptation of the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) principles for pediatric application.

Main Results:

• The audit revealed inconsistent documentation of care provided to dying children.
• Work is underway to create a new integrated care pathway.
• The pathway aims to standardize and improve end-of-life care documentation.

Conclusions:

• There is a need for standardized approaches to pediatric end-of-life care.
• An integrated care pathway can enhance the consistency and quality of care documentation.
• The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) provides a foundation for improving care for dying children and their families.