Liverpool Care Pathway: For and against

It is "completely wrong" for terminally ill patients to be put on a "pathway" to death without relatives being consulted, a health minister has said.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme, Norman Lamb announced he had called a meeting of doctors and patients to discuss worries about the Liverpool Care Pathway - which can see water and food withdrawn.

A Conservative peer has called for an inquiry amid claims some people treated in this way could have survived.

The World at One's reporter Becky Milligan met with two people to hear about their very different experiences of the Liverpool Care Pathway.

Paul Barlow, whose father was put on the Liverpool Care Pathway, explained that he was not getting the care that he needed: "It's totally inhumane and awful that this happens… it must have been agony for him."

"It was torture for everybody, for him for us watching it... it was his time to die but it was the way that he died that was wrong."

Steven Pine, whose father also died on the Liverpool Care Pathway, described his view that it was the right way for his father to die.

"The treatment was fantastic," he said.