:00:26. > :00:29.Thank you, good morning. Welcome to Big Questions, live from
:00:29. > :00:34.Michaelston Community College in Cardiff. I'm Nicky Campbell, the UK
:00:34. > :00:40.is now the fattest country in Europe. One quarter of British
:00:40. > :00:43.adults are clinically obese, one third actually here in Wales. More
:00:43. > :00:47.worryingly, one third of British children are overweight or obese by
:00:47. > :00:51.the time they leave primary school. So, another flurry of and campaigns
:00:51. > :00:57.has launched in the last fortnight to do something about T one idea is
:00:57. > :01:03.to tax unhealthy foods. Our first big question, should we tax to
:01:03. > :01:09.tackle obesity? This grass tro entologist said that
:01:09. > :01:14.obesity is such a burden on the NHS we should tax all foods containing
:01:14. > :01:18.shruger. This campaigner says tax is too blunt an instrument and the
:01:18. > :01:23.food industry would find a way to avoid it.
:01:23. > :01:32.Some people believe in ghosts, others think horoscopes are a guide
:01:32. > :01:39.to life, and others trust hem homeopathic -- in homeopathic
:01:39. > :01:43.medicines. These people trust. Our question is faith compatible with
:01:43. > :01:49.reason. This author says human progression needs to unravel
:01:49. > :01:54.mysteries not revel in it. Andrea Foulkes, past regression therapist,
:01:54. > :01:58.says her heart tells her what to believe.
:01:58. > :02:03.This week's report into Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust said
:02:03. > :02:06.appalling care flourished because managers put cost control and self-
:02:06. > :02:09.interesting ahead of care and safety. This is not confined to one
:02:09. > :02:14.hospital, across the National Health Service doctors and nurses
:02:14. > :02:19.have raised serious concerns about the Care Pathway, it is a protocol
:02:19. > :02:23.designed to give a good death in hospital. I will ask the question,
:02:23. > :02:29.is NHS cutting lives short. This doctor says Liverpool Care
:02:29. > :02:32.Pathway has become a self-fulfiling prophesy. Many people die too soon
:02:32. > :02:37.because they are put on it. And this doctor says people are only
:02:37. > :02:41.put on it if there is a 97% likelihood the patient would die in
:02:41. > :02:49.24 hours. It does not cause deaths, and it aims to ease dying.
:02:49. > :02:54.Welcome everybody to Big Questions. Today the average ten-year-old boy,
:02:54. > :02:59.living here in Wales, where we are this morning, is 10 kilograms, or
:02:59. > :03:04.one stone eight pounds heavier than his counterpart ten years ago. This
:03:04. > :03:13.is the first generation of children not expected to live as long as
:03:13. > :03:20.their parents. Obesity already cost the NHS �6 billion, thought tole
:03:20. > :03:26.balloon to �50 billion by 2050, 300 separate conditions in all are
:03:26. > :03:34.attached to obesity. Should we tax to tackle obesity. Zoe Harcombe,
:03:34. > :03:37.you have written this book, The Obesity Epidemic. You talk about
:03:37. > :03:41."insidious" sugar. That is the great Satan of food? I believe we
:03:41. > :03:45.should tax and we have to get the right tax. We must not tax anything
:03:45. > :03:48.that is real food or a component of real food. People often put three
:03:49. > :03:54.things together, fat, sugar and salt, two of those are wrong. Fat
:03:54. > :03:58.and salt are real foods, found in real foods, we need more of both of
:03:59. > :04:02.them, ironically. Sugar is the demon. We had a sugar tax until
:04:02. > :04:06.1874, we just need to bring it back in. It needs to be punitive, such
:04:06. > :04:11.that it acts as a deterrent. Punitive and prohibitive? As you
:04:11. > :04:18.said at the top of the programme, we have to do something. Foresight
:04:18. > :04:21.report says that 90% of 200's children will be overweight by 2050
:04:21. > :04:27.unless we do something. We have to do something serious. Sustain
:04:27. > :04:31.called last week for a 20p per ly theer on sugary drinks, I would go
:04:31. > :04:36.further, anything that contain as gram of sugar or sweetener, the
:04:36. > :04:41.food industry will only do one or the other, double the price and tax
:04:41. > :04:47.it t a bag of sweets should cost more than �20 rather than 20p. We
:04:47. > :04:52.have to price this out of people's range!
:04:52. > :04:57.�20 for bag of sweets? Behaves lived fat for so many years, I have
:04:57. > :05:01.learned the hard way that to lose weight you shouldn't eat any of
:05:01. > :05:09.these things. If you tax -- having lived as fat for so many years I
:05:09. > :05:13.have learned the hard way you shouldn't eat those things. If you
:05:13. > :05:19.tax these food it won't help fat people. Let's not take obesity as
:05:19. > :05:25.an excuse, the more we talk about fat people, the more we demonise
:05:26. > :05:29.fat people. The more obesity is on the rise. You think it is a self-
:05:29. > :05:33.fulfiling prophesy because people's reasons for eating more are
:05:33. > :05:41.exacerbated? There are so many reasons for people being fat. There
:05:41. > :05:45.are health conditions like overgrowth, that gets people to
:05:45. > :05:49.want to eat sugary food. Why blame fat people all the time. This is
:05:49. > :05:52.not demonising fat people, it is not at all. I have every sympathy
:05:53. > :05:56.but, this is demonising the food industry. I deal with thousands and
:05:56. > :06:00.thousands of people who are fat, and the only thing they want is to
:06:00. > :06:07.lose weight. Absolutely. I don't think any fat person alive,
:06:07. > :06:15.especially women, with all the shame and humiliation, with all the
:06:15. > :06:18.ostraciseing of them. What is wrong with making sure the food that is
:06:18. > :06:21.killing people and cutting life short is more expensive than the
:06:21. > :06:26.food that is good for you, what is wrong with that? There is nothing
:06:26. > :06:32.wrong, ban it, ban it! If it's bad for the fat it's bad for the thin!
:06:32. > :06:36.I go there, ban it! Even better. Don't tax it, ban it. Food writer,
:06:36. > :06:41.Oliver? Agree with Zoe, sugar is far more dangerous than FA a good
:06:41. > :06:47.wave doing things might be, by -- than fat, a good way of doing
:06:48. > :06:52.things might be offsetting the tax on fizzy drinks is with suss
:06:52. > :06:57.December for healthy food. stigma of fat people, we get the
:06:57. > :07:02.worst jobs, we are worse off, you see insults everywhere, we can't be
:07:02. > :07:07.superstars or film stars or anything. Fat is being humiliated
:07:07. > :07:11.and insulted, I don't think anyone in their right mind wants to be fat.
:07:11. > :07:14.How do we stop children from getting fat in the first place.
:07:14. > :07:18.This will increase life chances of children, and include their health
:07:18. > :07:22.and well being, we are what we eat, educational attainment. It will, if
:07:22. > :07:26.we do something radical, lead to fairer society what do we need to
:07:26. > :07:35.do? The danger here that we are focusing on food. Obesity is never
:07:35. > :07:45.just simply excessive calorie eating on the own. I think the
:07:45. > :07:46.
:07:46. > :07:52.whole society has become so sed dentry, it is for -- dsedintry, we
:07:52. > :07:56.need to get up. He is saying it is laziness not sugar? The food
:07:56. > :08:01.industry wants us to believe, that they want to tell us, eat all of
:08:01. > :08:08.our product, eat more of our products, as much sugary and fizzy
:08:08. > :08:14.drinks as you like, but exercise it off, you lazy so and sos.
:08:14. > :08:21.National Obesity Forum says, what? You don't like them? I like
:08:21. > :08:28.everybody! Some less than others? We have a big heart, as our
:08:28. > :08:31.beautiful big bodies! You are a gentleman and your association and
:08:31. > :08:37.your movement with the diet industry and everybody are trying
:08:37. > :08:42.to eradicate fat completely. Anyone who is fat is diseased, which is
:08:42. > :08:46.not true. Obesity is a disease, it is a progressive disease. It is not
:08:46. > :08:50.a disease for everybody. All the diseases that you find, in fat
:08:50. > :08:54.people, you find in thin people, diabetes, high blood pressure,
:08:54. > :09:02.cholesterol, all sorts of this. Show me a disease that is only for
:09:02. > :09:06.fat people, and thin people don't have? Where? Your risk is much
:09:06. > :09:10.higher of those things. We need to come back to, we have a fine night
:09:10. > :09:15.budget to spend on disease in this country. The NHS only has a certain
:09:16. > :09:20.amount to spend, and the Government has a duty of care to ensure it has
:09:20. > :09:23.the best resources available for us all. The emphasis needs to be on
:09:23. > :09:26.prevention. I think I agree with a lot of what has been said already.
:09:26. > :09:31.We don't know, most people don't nope what is healthy food any more.
:09:31. > :09:34.So I think we need to do some radical things around banning the
:09:34. > :09:38.word "healthy" on most product, because they are not healthy.
:09:38. > :09:42.what for example? There are all sorts of things that call
:09:42. > :09:48.themselves healthy because they have a few oats in, the fact that
:09:48. > :09:52.they have 30 grams of sugar is ignored. We need intelligent food
:09:52. > :09:57.labelling. The current traffic light system demonises really
:09:57. > :10:03.important nutrition tral product, such as eggs, dairy, cheese --
:10:03. > :10:08.nutritional products, such as eggs, dairy and cheese. The policy should
:10:08. > :10:15.be, don't buy anything with a label. The fact that we don't know what is
:10:15. > :10:21.in our food is patently clear this week with the whole horse business!
:10:21. > :10:26.Where do we start with this? I was going to saying, I used to be 14
:10:26. > :10:30.stone 10, obviously I'm tall, but it was a real problem and horrible,
:10:30. > :10:34.because you are away everyone looks at you, everyone is thin, and
:10:34. > :10:38.everyone is telling you shouldn't be that size. But I was perfectly
:10:38. > :10:45.healthy, and, in fact, I was trying to lose weight, everything I did to
:10:45. > :10:50.try it lose weight didn't work, I was doing Weightwatchers, the
:10:50. > :10:56.cabbage diet, and I just got fatter. The way to be losing weight is to
:10:56. > :11:00.be happy, active and do something you love doing. To eat less?
:11:00. > :11:05.happens naturally. To eat less sugar, definitely. So much of the
:11:05. > :11:10.scientific evidence is moving in favour of sugar as being the really
:11:11. > :11:14.dangerous thing. HFC as well, but for a long time it was fat being
:11:14. > :11:18.demoniesed, buying low-fat foods full of sugar, all the evidence is
:11:18. > :11:28.shifting away from that Barry Tubbs has writ an great book called How
:11:28. > :11:32.Do We Get Fat about this. We are all liable to get the 300 related
:11:32. > :11:36.diseases, related today obesity? You are more likely if you are
:11:36. > :11:42.obese. That is what we are hearing, in your opinion, doctor, do you
:11:42. > :11:48.think I'm thin? Hear out the doctor. In the coming decade there will be
:11:48. > :11:52.an increase by 50% of type II diabetes, simply because there is a
:11:52. > :11:57.trend increasing in obesity. There is a very close relationship
:11:57. > :12:05.between the two. There is no co- relation, there is a co-relation,
:12:05. > :12:11.not causality. There is causality. It has not been proved. Are you in
:12:11. > :12:15.denial here, of the scientific facts, that is our second debate!
:12:15. > :12:19.The science improves and changes every day. I'm talking as a fat
:12:19. > :12:24.person who is in contact with so many other fat people. If we want a
:12:24. > :12:30.healthy nation, we have to stop this pressure on losing weight.
:12:30. > :12:35.Forget the weight, change the pardigm from weight to health. Get
:12:35. > :12:40.people to eat healthy to exercise. We are not talking about yourself,
:12:40. > :12:43.we are talking prevention, and we are talking about management for
:12:43. > :12:47.those who are already obese. If you don't want to be treated fine, if
:12:47. > :12:52.you are happy with what you are. You see you are accusing me already
:12:52. > :12:58.of being diseased because you don't like my size. You would rather I
:12:58. > :13:01.melt. Is it a disease? Of course it is. It isn't. It is a body shape.
:13:01. > :13:07.You don't say there is a pandemic about something that isn't a
:13:07. > :13:14.disease. It is a body shape that is so manipulated that is in danger
:13:14. > :13:17.because of Yeoh dieting, we lose weight -- yo-yo dieting and losing
:13:17. > :13:22.weight and putting it back down. Ten years ago the weight of an
:13:22. > :13:27.average child in Cardiff, the average boy weighed a stone flaf
:13:27. > :13:32.less ten years ago than no -- stone-and-a-half less than ten
:13:32. > :13:36.years ago, why? Cheap sugar. Coca- Cola and all that? Studies have
:13:36. > :13:40.been done on this, children are no more less active than they were in
:13:40. > :13:44.the 1960s, what has happened is a plummeting of the price of sugar,
:13:44. > :13:48.largely through subsidies in American corn, ands and as a result
:13:48. > :13:52.people are taking on 300-400 more calories more than they used to be,
:13:53. > :13:59.that is why the weight has ballooned, especially in young
:13:59. > :14:04.people. When we had Coca-Cola it was a treat in our house? On the
:14:04. > :14:10.Government's website, it has this healthy food plate, on it has 8% of
:14:10. > :14:20.that in things like cake, and coal la can. That should not be part of
:14:20. > :14:20.
:14:20. > :14:24.a -- coal la can, that should not be -- cola can, that should not be
:14:24. > :14:29.on there. Did you have a healthy breakfast? I didn't have breakfast.
:14:29. > :14:32.A lot of factors are contributing to this, we are giving people
:14:32. > :14:37.negative images of themselves, and that doesn't help their mental
:14:37. > :14:41.health and that needs to be addressed. People don't just eat or
:14:41. > :14:45.eating's sake there is something behind T we are consumerist, we
:14:45. > :14:48.want everything yesterday, why cook a healthy meal within I want
:14:48. > :14:52.something easily accessible. If you tax it, alcohol is taxed,
:14:52. > :14:59.cigarettes are taxed, if you ban it, you create a black market. You need
:14:59. > :15:03.to look at the reasons why people are doing these things.
:15:03. > :15:09.I was think to go myself, the British public are pretty fed up of
:15:09. > :15:14.being taxed all the time. APPLAUSE
:15:14. > :15:22.Why don't we spend some of this money on an awareness campaign. Add
:15:22. > :15:24.some bicycle lanes in some of these areas, push this idea of the
:15:24. > :15:29.healthy lifestyle. I'm just wondering how much of a difference
:15:29. > :15:34.it will make things like smoking bans came into public places,
:15:34. > :15:38.obviously with taking it off the shelves in supermarkets and then
:15:38. > :15:42.having the "smoking kills" sign, how much difference will it make.
:15:42. > :15:46.We have half the smokers we had in the 1960s, smoking it one of the
:15:46. > :15:48.arguments against the point you just made. You have to look at who
:15:49. > :15:53.owns the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry owns the
:15:53. > :15:56.food industry, the food industry want to make you sick and ill by
:15:56. > :16:01.putting chemicals in that rot your bod and make you ill, they then
:16:01. > :16:10.give you tablet that is make you better. It is all about iluminati
:16:11. > :16:15.families making money in the world. You perked up there Rob, Iluminati
:16:15. > :16:20.families making money? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, to be
:16:20. > :16:23.honest. He gave our power away, we started not growing our own
:16:23. > :16:26.vegtables and gives power to people saying we will make the food, you
:16:26. > :16:31.don't want to cook, we will make it for you, we didn't question what
:16:31. > :16:37.was in this stuff, they started putting all kinds of crap in it.
:16:38. > :16:44.Language for saund morning! I'm a raw food -- A Sunday morning.
:16:44. > :16:49.a Big Food eater, why would you want to eat corto isol in your food,
:16:49. > :16:54.that gives you fear. Is there anything in what she's saying about
:16:54. > :16:59.chemicals in your food, we are what we eat, they are having a bad
:16:59. > :17:03.effect? I think smoking is difficult, obviously. We have moved
:17:04. > :17:09.on from smoking. We are talking about the chemicals the stuff
:17:09. > :17:13.pumped into our meat? You are a doctor you know what cortisol does
:17:13. > :17:18.to the body? Processed food is not as healthy as genuine food. We know
:17:18. > :17:24.that, that is a fact. The question is, I come back to this, though a
:17:24. > :17:31.lot less people smoke nowadays, mortality among the population has
:17:31. > :17:37.not been reduced. Monosantumare genetically modified seeds that are
:17:37. > :17:41.patented, you can't use the same seed nexty, our bodies can't break
:17:41. > :17:46.down genetically modified vegtable, they aren't vegtables. I don't want
:17:46. > :17:50.to get distracted into a GM argument, that is not true that our
:17:50. > :17:55.bodies can't digest GM food. What about the danger that this would
:17:55. > :17:58.ultimately, in the short-term and mid--term, before we have this
:17:58. > :18:02.cullinary and Cultural Revolution, this would be a tax on the poor?
:18:02. > :18:06.The difficult is the very groups that we are seeing obesity tend to
:18:06. > :18:10.be those with very low incomes. There is a huge cultural problem in
:18:10. > :18:15.the way we are bringing up children, particularly rewarding children for
:18:15. > :18:18.good behaviour with sweets, they get a sugar rush, they then get a
:18:18. > :18:25.bit hyperactive, they get hungry afterwards. I remember going to the
:18:25. > :18:32.doctor and getting a jelly babey at the doctor, that was OK? We are
:18:32. > :18:39.conditioning children to go for the treat foods and we need to change
:18:39. > :18:42.the pattern. Our respect for local farmer, look in Wales we grow
:18:42. > :18:45.fantastic vegtables, but people don't know how to cook vegtables
:18:45. > :18:52.any more. That needs to go into primary schools and reward good
:18:52. > :18:55.behaviours. I think we are failing to address
:18:55. > :19:00.the fact that eating more healthily is more expensive, if you are
:19:00. > :19:04.trying to feed a large family of small children, where there is
:19:04. > :19:09.hidden sugar in fast-food, that's where we are going wrong. Should we
:19:09. > :19:14.tax it? No, we shouldn't tax it, we need to make healthier food more
:19:14. > :19:17.available to those that are economically disadvantaged.
:19:18. > :19:24.Good morning, I agree with what was just said, also I think the
:19:24. > :19:28.Government, rather than taxing the food, they need to further regulate
:19:28. > :19:34.the food manufacturers, because you go to the supermarket, there is
:19:34. > :19:37.hundreds of item on sale, full of sugar, full of ingredients we can't
:19:37. > :19:41.even pronounce, that are highly addictive. The problem with the tax
:19:41. > :19:46.is if you tax the foods, the people addicted to them will still buy
:19:46. > :19:50.them regardless. Ing Back to what do we do? I --
:19:50. > :19:53.coming back to what do we do, the focus needs to be on prevention, we
:19:53. > :19:57.need it start young, cooking should be compulsory in schools, nutrition
:19:57. > :20:00.should be compulsory in schools. As soon as a child starts to become
:20:00. > :20:04.overweight, they and their family should be given compulsory
:20:04. > :20:08.education on how to eat healthily, unless you intervene young, that
:20:08. > :20:13.person will go on to become more and more overweight, and have all
:20:13. > :20:18.the risks that are associated, the bottom line is, you are beautiful,
:20:18. > :20:23.you are lovely, but we can't afford a world full of people who are
:20:23. > :20:31.overweight. We have to accept that God has created people in different
:20:31. > :20:35.shapes and sizes, why are we trying to elimb nai. People get to my --
:20:35. > :20:39.eliminate. People get to my size because they are trying to get to
:20:39. > :20:45.your size. They are against their size, if I was supposed to be 10
:20:45. > :20:48.stone, and they tell me to lose, lose, lose, I become 35 stone.
:20:49. > :20:54.I think the argument that people should lose weight because the
:20:55. > :20:57.health service can't afford to fund overweight people is a very
:20:57. > :21:02.dangerous argument. I don't think it is up to the health service to
:21:02. > :21:08.decide what people should be like. It is up to the health service to
:21:08. > :21:10.provide healthcare for people who be, they choose to be. It may well
:21:10. > :21:15.be right for us to encourage healthy eating, that is very
:21:15. > :21:18.important. We don't choose to be obese. Otherwise we end up saying
:21:18. > :21:22.therefore we shouldn't offer orthopaedic for people who choose
:21:22. > :21:24.to go skiing and break their legs. The health service is there to
:21:24. > :21:27.serve people, not the other way round.
:21:27. > :21:31.Thank you very much indeed everyone for your contribution. I'm sure you
:21:31. > :21:34.would like to say something about that, log on to the website, follow
:21:34. > :21:39.the link to where you can join in on-line. You can join the
:21:39. > :21:42.discussion on Twitter too. We are also debating live this morning
:21:42. > :21:47.from Cardiff, is faith compatible with reason? Is the NHS cutting
:21:47. > :21:50.lives short. Tell us what you think about those topics, send your ideas
:21:50. > :21:57.for future debates if you will, or any comments you would like to make
:21:57. > :22:04.about the programme. Britain's most famous atheist,
:22:04. > :22:09.Professor Richard Dawkins, said, "faith is the great cop out, the
:22:09. > :22:12.great escape from the need to evaluate evidence", a founding
:22:12. > :22:15.father of Christian theology, St Augustine said the understanding is
:22:15. > :22:20.the reward of faith, seek to not understand what you believe, but
:22:20. > :22:26.believe that you may understand. Is faith compatible with reason?
:22:26. > :22:31.You have written this very interesting book, The Her
:22:31. > :22:36.particulars Adventures With The Enemies of Science. The psychology
:22:36. > :22:37.of this is very interesting, there are creationists and people are
:22:37. > :22:42.into horoscopes, past life regression people, we have
:22:42. > :22:48.something of that ilk to talk to, I'm delighted to say is in the
:22:48. > :22:51.studio. David Irving, the Hitler apologyist, the psychology is
:22:51. > :22:55.interesting, in the face of evidence overwhelming to the
:22:55. > :22:59.contrary people will stick to their belief and have this filtering
:22:59. > :23:02.system in their mind. It is fascinating. What I discovered is
:23:02. > :23:09.people decide what to believe with their emotions. We are confronted
:23:09. > :23:14.by a fact, and we decide emotional low and instantaneously whether or
:23:14. > :23:19.not we believe T through lots of filters, like emotional bias, we
:23:19. > :23:24.seek to justify the emotional response, anything we come across
:23:24. > :23:28.to dismiss the emotional response we put it aside and say the person
:23:28. > :23:32.coming up with is an idiot. This is how our beliefs come about and we
:23:32. > :23:36.become more and more convinced they are right. It all begins with
:23:36. > :23:41.feelings. The quest for certainty? Yes, people are intolerant of doubt.
:23:41. > :23:45.People will have this drive to find more and more evidence to back up
:23:45. > :23:50.their beliefs. Although doubt arguably is driven discovery in the
:23:50. > :23:54.past and science and progress? Absolutely, I think people are
:23:54. > :23:58.naturally intolerant of doubt, we need to have a bit of humility
:23:58. > :24:01.about we believe, and understand we should always encourage that
:24:01. > :24:05.feeling of doubt. Past life regression therapy? Most people
:24:05. > :24:08.think they know about past lives and what I do don't unless they
:24:08. > :24:14.experience it. You have said you can't scientific prove things, I
:24:14. > :24:20.just know they are true? You can't scientificly prove it, but quantum
:24:20. > :24:23.physics improving that the heart has a cohesive wave form, a pat orn,
:24:23. > :24:29.that creates emotion. Everyone's thoughts and beliefs are coming
:24:29. > :24:33.from an origin, where do they come from? Three strains, ancestoral
:24:33. > :24:38.pattern, passed down through ancestors, which we call genetic, I
:24:38. > :24:41.work with when I regress people to change something in the
:24:41. > :24:44.subconscious, then you have past life patterns and compounded stuff
:24:44. > :24:49.from being in the womb to present day. You have consciousness in the
:24:49. > :24:55.womb. This creates your current reality. Even weight is an issue of
:24:55. > :25:01.a slowed metabolism, coming from programming from past lives or
:25:01. > :25:05.ancestor, that is why it is genetic, and a lot of people might be
:25:05. > :25:09.overweight. The conscious self is going I have no issues but the
:25:09. > :25:13.subconscious is going another story. What is external proof? Clients and
:25:13. > :25:19.people who have experienced and they change their reality. I don't
:25:19. > :25:23.deny your reality exist, that person's exist, all realities exist,
:25:23. > :25:31.but within different dimensions, we live in a multidimensional reality,
:25:31. > :25:34.a holographic universe. A what? holographic universe. Babble!
:25:34. > :25:40.have free will to believe it is babble, it is free will. That is
:25:40. > :25:45.why a lot of people haven't heard of past life regressionism is there
:25:45. > :25:50.is no scientific basis, the burden of proof rests with you, you need
:25:51. > :25:56.to prove what you have just said. did my own show on ITV I have
:25:56. > :26:03.proved it with clients. The point you are making is a theory attain
:26:03. > :26:08.as status of scientific they arey, if anything disproves it or
:26:08. > :26:14.successfully proves it, it is or isn't a theory? Your heart tells
:26:14. > :26:20.you this is true. It is. That isn't the organ that allows you to tell
:26:20. > :26:25.you reason. The heart has an intelligence. Science is proving
:26:25. > :26:29.that now. Reason is based on empier ral evidence that is testable, and
:26:29. > :26:34.falsifyable, and verifiable, and you are not able to do that.
:26:34. > :26:38.you interrupt in a previous life as well! That is all I have to say.
:26:38. > :26:41.The burden of proof rests with you, you can't provide the evidence.
:26:41. > :26:46.can provide the evidence. It is such a dangerous way to look at
:26:46. > :26:50.life, you can justify anything, a belief in anything with faith.
:26:50. > :26:56.Everybody experiences their Israel tee, everybody experiences their
:26:56. > :27:01.reality. If -- reality. Everybody experiences their reality, if
:27:01. > :27:04.somebody has an experience and you can't prove, they heal disease and
:27:04. > :27:09.illness. You are a physicist but also a Christian, but you see great
:27:09. > :27:15.proof of God in physics, don't you, and in the world around you.
:27:15. > :27:17.Although some would say, as those mysteries are unravelled, as we
:27:17. > :27:23.progress scientifically and we discover more and more, some argue
:27:23. > :27:26.there is less of a space for God, but the rainbow is a good example,
:27:26. > :27:31.God did it, we know how rainbow through the refraction of light
:27:31. > :27:35.work. It is the idea of the God of the gaps, those gaps get smaller
:27:35. > :27:41.and smaller? Can I answer? If I can just set up the background, let's
:27:41. > :27:45.think about faith generally, faith in human life. Hopefully husbands
:27:45. > :27:49.have faith in their wives, visa versa, that is based on past
:27:49. > :27:53.experience. But you don't know that your spouse is going to be faithful
:27:53. > :27:58.in the future. So you are taking something from the past, which is
:27:58. > :28:02.rational, reasonable, based on observation of this person as you
:28:02. > :28:07.are courting, and then at some point one of you decides, both
:28:07. > :28:10.decide at the same time you want to get married. Once you are married,
:28:10. > :28:15.then have told each other you will try to stay together. You have
:28:15. > :28:19.faith this person will be steady, kind, faithful, and you have to
:28:19. > :28:24.keep going. At some point you might start thinking is he seeing someone
:28:24. > :28:28.else, for example, and then, you can either say I will trust in him
:28:28. > :28:33.a bit longer until it is absolutely obvious that he's being unfaithful,
:28:33. > :28:37.or you can start setting ...It falsifyable, you can get a private
:28:37. > :28:40.detective to find out? But there is still an element of taking what you
:28:40. > :28:47.know to be true, and applying that to the future which you don't
:28:47. > :28:52.actually know. So other examples are, orchestras and the conductor,
:28:52. > :28:57.the conductor takes the orchestra through a series of rehearsals, you
:28:57. > :29:00.have to have faith he will rehearse you enough in the different places.
:29:00. > :29:03.So far? I think it is interesting we are talking about past life
:29:03. > :29:06.regression, which I have experienced, and you say you know
:29:06. > :29:10.it in your heart that is real. I think it is the same with
:29:10. > :29:14.Christians, Christians begin with extremely powerful emotional
:29:14. > :29:17.conviction that God is real. But, of course, we don't know that God
:29:17. > :29:20.is real until you have been in a room with God and shaken his hand,
:29:20. > :29:24.you don't know it is real. It begins with the feeling. The source
:29:24. > :29:30.of your feelings is your brain or mind or not anything out there. We
:29:30. > :29:33.are all the same. I'm not more rational in lots of ways than you.
:29:33. > :29:37.I'm not saying I'm Mr Perfect, we all begin with these feelings, but
:29:37. > :29:44.these feelings aren't to be trusted? Why aren't these feelings
:29:44. > :29:46.to be trusted? Because, emotionally, we all tell ourselves stories about
:29:46. > :29:53.the world, these stories are very emotional, full of people who hate
:29:53. > :29:58.us and love us, good guys and bad, the brain is like a story-
:29:58. > :30:01.generating organism, it is not fact-begin the and rating organism,
:30:01. > :30:06.we become vulnerable to the narratives we tell of the world. As
:30:06. > :30:12.I say, they lead us down very distorted passages in terms of what
:30:12. > :30:17.we should and shouldn't believe? is not about should and shouldn't.
:30:17. > :30:22.Clearly God is invisible, we don't wake up and the huge face of God
:30:22. > :30:26.smiling down at us from the sky. Is that deliberate? Is God perhaps
:30:26. > :30:32.setting us, if you think about the story of Beauty and the Beast,
:30:32. > :30:35.beauty wakes up, I can't remember it, there is this bit, and
:30:35. > :30:40.everything is provided for her, a sumptious mansion, she can't see
:30:41. > :30:44.who is in charge, it is the beast, obviously, and she gets to know his
:30:44. > :30:48.character through what he is providing for her. So that, when
:30:48. > :30:53.they meet, she understands his actual kindness, rather than
:30:53. > :30:56.judging him from appearance. With respect, what we are seeing here is
:30:56. > :31:00.confirmation bias in action. You are intelligent person, you have
:31:00. > :31:05.this belief in God, but there is a problem, where is God, I can't see
:31:05. > :31:09.him. Now we are watching you doing it, how can we explain this, how
:31:09. > :31:14.can we think our way around this? Your book sounds interesting, I'm
:31:14. > :31:18.looking forward to reading it, you are right about confirmation bias,
:31:18. > :31:24.but the point about reason is a belief in reason or the value of
:31:24. > :31:31.reason encourages you to advance high poties, to test them, reach
:31:31. > :31:35.conclusions and test those conclusions. And when does the
:31:35. > :31:41.hypothesis become theory? Faith rejects all of that.
:31:41. > :31:44.That is not true. Many people come to faith through an intellectual
:31:45. > :31:48.study, they look at the evidence, archaeological, the writers at the
:31:48. > :31:54.time, the verification, that is what brings them to faith. It is
:31:54. > :31:58.the intellectual evidence base for faith that then is confirmed by
:31:58. > :32:04.existential experience. It does not come from a feeling. Intellectual
:32:04. > :32:10.evidence base confirmed by existential experience? It sounds
:32:10. > :32:13.like a spurious term, every discovery made by science has
:32:13. > :32:18.excluded a supernatural constituent in that experiment. It is the God
:32:18. > :32:22.of the gaps. Up been more than optimistic if you think any
:32:22. > :32:27.scientific discould have r cover rees in the future will contain
:32:27. > :32:30.that supernatural. What about the human mind that we do not have an
:32:30. > :32:33.understanding of the human mind and consciousness, you are not there
:32:33. > :32:38.yet. There is a big gap? I would say even if we could never
:32:38. > :32:42.understand human consciousness, I still think the most implausible
:32:42. > :32:50.explanation for consciousness is an invisible man in the sky put it
:32:50. > :32:54.there. There is going to be a scientific explanation. One second.
:32:55. > :32:59.I don't think it is an invisible man. Why do we think it is man, why
:32:59. > :33:05.can source, which is life force energy be male or female, why can
:33:05. > :33:10.it not be both. I don't want you two to fall out with each other. We
:33:10. > :33:15.have the conscious and subconscious self-, and that is running your
:33:15. > :33:20.fight or flight actions. By your past life programming. It is not by
:33:20. > :33:25.an external force. It is an inner force. It comes from within us.
:33:26. > :33:29.There is nothing out there, it is inside you. John Paul II said faith
:33:29. > :33:34.and reason, I will put it to you ol version he said that faith and
:33:34. > :33:40.reason are like two things are like two wings on which the human reason
:33:41. > :33:44.rises to the contemplation of truth. Discuss? It is complete babble.
:33:44. > :33:47.Martin Luthur was much closer to the mark, when he said reason was
:33:47. > :33:51.the greatest enemy that Christians face, and Christians should pluck
:33:51. > :33:54.out the eye of reason. The tragedy of that quotation is he recognised
:33:54. > :33:59.that reason was a way of seeing things. Do you think anyone there
:33:59. > :34:04.in this studio and watching at home who has faith is being illogical?
:34:04. > :34:08.think it's difficult to, I think people who have faith can begin
:34:08. > :34:11.from a position that face faith is the primal thing, the most
:34:11. > :34:15.important thing, and then they can reason within that. I have argued
:34:15. > :34:20.before, I just argued that faith and reason are diametrically
:34:20. > :34:25.opposed, one starts with conclusion and one parts with a premises.
:34:25. > :34:31.greatest mathematician that lived, Sir eyes sack Newton, said that a
:34:31. > :34:34.thumb print, and no two are identical, is enough for him to be
:34:34. > :34:40.persuaded that there is a creator God. The probability for that one
:34:40. > :34:46.fact is so huge, that led him on that one fact. Some of the world's
:34:46. > :34:50.leading evolutionists biologists are Christians, Ken Miller and
:34:50. > :34:56.Watson. They see wonderful things in, for example, the natural
:34:56. > :35:03.processes of evolution, it is not exclusive, it was Steven J Gould
:35:03. > :35:07.who spoke of the non-overlapping imagination teary of science and
:35:07. > :35:11.faith, you -- majesty of science and faith, you don't buy that?
:35:11. > :35:14.is hard to reconcile evolution and faith. We have to believe that God
:35:14. > :35:18.twidled his thumbs for billions of years, waiting for evolution to
:35:18. > :35:23.deliver the human masterpiece. The reason why evolution has been
:35:23. > :35:30.accepted by faith is because of the twinedling intellectual integrity
:35:30. > :35:37.of religion -- dwindling intellectual integrity of religion.
:35:37. > :35:41.Most churches accept it, we did a debate, it is not just evolution,
:35:41. > :35:45.there are other aspects of science as well? It is clutching at straws,
:35:45. > :35:51.it is having your cake and eating it, to be honest. It doesn't stack
:35:51. > :35:54.up to tally the two. But it is just a means, as all of us said, it is a
:35:54. > :35:59.start with that truth, there must be a God, we must find a way to
:35:59. > :36:06.link that evidence back to God. It doesn't stack up. It is not just
:36:06. > :36:11.the natural world, for a start we have got people claim, Jesus came
:36:11. > :36:16.2,000 years ago, and the idea is that he was actually God in human
:36:16. > :36:22.form, showing us what God was like. Do you think if he had a DNA test,
:36:22. > :36:28.half of it would be untraceable? Half came from his mother?
:36:28. > :36:32.Scientifically? I don't know. was all divine. All his DNA is
:36:32. > :36:36.divine? Half is from your mother or father? It was imMaastricht late
:36:36. > :36:41.conception, it was all de divine, she carried the baby.
:36:41. > :36:47.-- it was all divine, and she carried the baby. What if we're all
:36:47. > :36:54.God, and I love all the prophets and they are all right, Mohammed,
:36:54. > :36:59.Jesus, but we man have distorted it to be seech this external deity, --
:36:59. > :37:03.be seech this external deity which is not true the In terms of hope
:37:03. > :37:13.and faith, faith as defined is based on conjecture, this is
:37:13. > :37:20.general definition, from an Islamic perspective, faith convinces the
:37:20. > :37:24.mind, settles in the hat and follows the option. Faith is an
:37:24. > :37:30.intellectual journey, when you are talking about reason and rational,
:37:30. > :37:36.using reality, you will find that actually this is very compatible
:37:36. > :37:40.with religion, in fact, it actually leads to you belief of the creator.
:37:40. > :37:45.Another point that has been made, we keep talking about God, almost
:37:45. > :37:50.in a sort of human form, where as for us we should be looking at the
:37:50. > :37:53.creator and starting from that premise, coming to the point of a
:37:53. > :38:03.creator, that is eternal. That everything is limited and dependant
:38:03. > :38:04.
:38:04. > :38:08.on the creator. Rather than an anthropecenric God? This man has
:38:09. > :38:13.described bias, it starts with a belief and goes on a journey.
:38:13. > :38:16.Koran has very strong edicts in it to seek knowledge? But problem is
:38:16. > :38:19.with that, we feel as if we are seeking knowledge, as has been
:38:19. > :38:23.demonstrated, this is confirmation, we feel as if we are having a
:38:23. > :38:27.rational, reasonable exmoreation of the facts, we are not, we are just
:38:27. > :38:31.-- exploration of the facts, we are not, we are confirming what the
:38:31. > :38:36.thought in the first place. science the same things thing
:38:36. > :38:40.happens, I'm sorry. Scientists have a hypothesis, it might be a PhD
:38:40. > :38:45.student given an idea by a superviser, and he says, go away
:38:45. > :38:50.and see if this is true. So you start with a premises, and I think
:38:50. > :38:54.with God it is a bit impossible to extrapolate and find out what God
:38:54. > :38:59.is just from reason alone. God has to come as Jesus as a Holy Spirit
:38:59. > :39:02.in our lives and so on, but does that mean it is not threw? I agree
:39:02. > :39:07.to an extent that of course scientists aren't free of these
:39:07. > :39:11.problems as well, but the scientific method is the method by
:39:11. > :39:16.which we have come across to destroy the processes of
:39:16. > :39:18.confirmation, destroying emotion, it is not a perfect system, you
:39:18. > :39:26.will get eminent scientists completely disagreeing on the data.
:39:26. > :39:32.But it is a brilliant and largely successful attempt. When Einstein's
:39:32. > :39:37.relativity theory came along everything had to ING cha.
:39:37. > :39:40.D change. We are all God, that is the message to take from it? If you
:39:40. > :39:43.have any questions or thoughts, go to the website and follow the on-
:39:43. > :39:47.line discussion. Send us views about the last on-line discussion,
:39:47. > :39:52.is the NHS cutting lives short? If you would like to be in an audience
:39:52. > :40:00.and come here for a future show, you can e-mail the address on the
:40:00. > :40:06.below. We are in Northolt next week, we are in south ham on --
:40:06. > :40:09.Southampton on February 24th. Most of us prefer not to think too
:40:09. > :40:12.much about dying, it is not something to plan forks but we hop
:40:12. > :40:18.for a good death, pain-free, surrounded by loved ones at home
:40:18. > :40:22.and in peace. But more than half of us will die on busy hospital ward.
:40:22. > :40:26.That is why the Liverpool Care Pathway was developed, to try to
:40:26. > :40:31.make each of those deaths as pain- free and peaceful as possible. As
:40:31. > :40:40.some families and doctors now fear that putting a patient on the
:40:40. > :40:45.Liverpool Care Pathway has itself become a death sentence. Ruling out
:40:45. > :40:51.the chance of recovery. Is the NHS cutting lives short.
:40:51. > :40:57.There has been quite a media furore about this, some thing a media
:40:57. > :41:01.hysteria about it. The Mail has been talking about it a lot. It is
:41:01. > :41:08.not about not prolonging a life, it is about not prolonging a life
:41:09. > :41:12.unnecessary, -- necessarily, isn't it, do you approve in principle
:41:12. > :41:16.with the Liverpool Care Pathway? One of the problems is it is
:41:16. > :41:19.predicated on a false premises, namely that you can accurately
:41:19. > :41:24.diagnose death, can you make an accurate prognosis of when a person
:41:24. > :41:28.is going to die, within the next few hours or days. There is no
:41:28. > :41:33.scientific evidence that we can do that. I know of no calibration
:41:33. > :41:41.tools to use to say how accurately we can make that prognosis. That is
:41:41. > :41:46.the danger. If you then sedate the patient, stop observations, stop
:41:46. > :41:52.interventions, and stop food and fluids, the patient must die.
:41:52. > :42:01.Whether or not they would have died any way, they must die, if you
:42:01. > :42:05.adopt that regime in full. Baroness Finlay, can we have full confidence
:42:05. > :42:10.that given the perceived crisis in care, it has been a very difficult
:42:10. > :42:16.week for the NHS, that this has been ethically and appropriately
:42:16. > :42:19.applied? Can I pick up the point, first of all, about prognosis, The
:42:19. > :42:25.Royal College of GPs in evidence to Select Committee and I was on, I
:42:25. > :42:30.quote, "it is possible to make reason reasonably accurate
:42:30. > :42:37.prognosis of death within minutes, hours and days, when it stretches
:42:37. > :42:40.for months, the scope for error increases". There is no accurate
:42:40. > :42:44.way of predicts what will happen anywhere, it is on probabilities.
:42:44. > :42:54.When somebody looks as if they are dying, and you have done all you
:42:54. > :42:55.
:42:55. > :42:59.can to exclude all reverse pbl causes, then whatever you -- pos --
:42:59. > :43:04.reversible causes, then whatever you do good evidence is base --
:43:04. > :43:08.care is based on evidence and analysing what you see before you.
:43:08. > :43:11.What about junior doctors, a weekend, busy ward, it is in the
:43:11. > :43:16.hands of people not under pressure and stressed, then fine, but is
:43:16. > :43:19.that always the case? I CERNly think the evidence coming forward -
:43:19. > :43:24.- I certainly think that evidence coming forward, let's look at
:43:24. > :43:30.evidence, is there seems to be a problem in some cases, there is now
:43:30. > :43:35.Anne inquiry set up. I think the inquiry has to access all the
:43:35. > :43:41.evidence and look at all the cases and conduct the inquiry,
:43:41. > :43:47.independently, impartially and look at where the problems lie, where
:43:47. > :43:50.there are problems, and, much more importantly, what the solutions to
:43:50. > :43:55.those problems are. For people hearing at home, if there is a
:43:55. > :43:59.problem with the application? would argue, of course there is a
:43:59. > :44:05.case for high-quality palliative care in hospices and in the home.
:44:05. > :44:09.But when that's rolled out, indiscriminately, in the NHS, it
:44:09. > :44:14.becomes very, very dangerous. My father was admitted to hospital on
:44:15. > :44:19.a Friday evening, parked on a ward all weekend, we begged them to do a
:44:19. > :44:24.CT scan, they kept saying we will have to see, we will have to see.
:44:24. > :44:30.We got the consultant brought down to his bed, she still refused to do
:44:30. > :44:38.a CT scan. On the Tuesday morning they called us in, too late now,
:44:39. > :44:42.he's too poorly. We were given a "definitive" diagnosis of
:44:42. > :44:46.perforation, we said how can you say that based on inconclusive X-
:44:46. > :44:52.rays, they said they were sure. He was put on the Liverpool Care
:44:52. > :44:56.Pathway, and died. At postmortem it was found that he actually had
:44:56. > :45:01.pulmonary embolism. misdiagnosis? It was a total
:45:01. > :45:09.misdiagnosis, but the reason we are here is because elderly care in the
:45:09. > :45:14.NHS is appalling. Can I say, firstly, I'm not here to
:45:14. > :45:18.defend the whole NHS, I don't know the ins and outs of the tragedy of
:45:18. > :45:23.your father's case. Exactly. can't comment on that, there would
:45:23. > :45:29.appear to have been a misdiagnosis, the difficulty in this discussion
:45:29. > :45:34.is did the Liverpool Care Pathway itself prevent people reviewing
:45:34. > :45:38.that diagnosis, or was the failure at a different point earlier? And
:45:38. > :45:42.the failure of care? The problem it wasn't just a misdiagnosis, they
:45:42. > :45:47.didn't do any investigation into what he had. Unfortunately a system
:45:47. > :45:52.like this, with the best intention in the world, people fall through
:45:52. > :45:56.the cracks, like our granddad. If one person fall through the cracks,
:45:56. > :46:00.for me, that is wrong. I would certainly not condone anyone
:46:00. > :46:06.falling through the cracks. The whole of the work that we do is to
:46:06. > :46:09.drive up care. Given, you know, the current problems, current stresses
:46:09. > :46:13.and pressures, future pressures, reorganisation, do you have the
:46:13. > :46:17.utmost, as much as you can, confidence that this is being
:46:17. > :46:22.appropriately and ethically and responsibly applied? Of course I
:46:22. > :46:26.couldn't say that I have a 100% confidence. We have an inquiry, I
:46:26. > :46:30.have been arguing for an inquiry, I have supported the setting up of an
:46:30. > :46:34.inquiry, and we need to have it, it needs to go and look in detail. Is
:46:34. > :46:38.the problem with the documentation itself, is the problem with the way
:46:38. > :46:42.it has been rolled out, is the problem with what's happening
:46:42. > :46:49.actually at the bedside. Financial incentives, hospitals have been
:46:49. > :46:53.paid, we saw last week with the Francis inquiry, about the problem,
:46:53. > :46:56.about target-driven NHS. Financial incentives have been paid to
:46:56. > :47:03.hospitals, certain hospitals that are now being investigated for
:47:04. > :47:08.their mortality rates. �30 million. One hospital was paid �308,000 for
:47:08. > :47:14.reaching targets for putting people on what is basically a euthanasia
:47:15. > :47:19.programme. Baroness, it is euthanasia. Euthanasia is about
:47:19. > :47:24.intent. The Liverpool Care Pathway doesn't intend to kill people, it
:47:24. > :47:31.intends to improve the care when people are inevitably dying. That
:47:31. > :47:36.is quite different. It doesn't work in practice. In your interview with
:47:36. > :47:41.the gazette, you finish your interview. What gazette for that?
:47:41. > :47:44.It was your local one. Don't mention it. You made the point, you
:47:44. > :47:51.said it is not that the Liverpool Care Pathway is bad in itself, it
:47:51. > :47:58.is that it can be badly used. I'm paraphrasing. That's right, it is
:47:58. > :48:01.abused in the NHS. The principle of it, it is a good principle?
:48:01. > :48:05.principle is, there is a point in the life of a patient, when they
:48:05. > :48:10.are going to die. We may not know it without absolute certainty, we
:48:10. > :48:14.have already talked about how human beings find certainty desirable,
:48:14. > :48:18.but can he can't always have it. If we wait until -- we can't always
:48:18. > :48:26.have it. If we wait until we are certain, we have missed the chance
:48:26. > :48:33.to care for them in that time. is not about prolonging life
:48:33. > :48:37.haizening it. I'm a physician, and I look after acutely ill people. We
:48:37. > :48:42.do occasionally put patients on the care pathy, we agonise on this
:48:42. > :48:46.decision, we consult nurse d care path way, we agonise on this
:48:46. > :48:50.decision, we consult, nurses, doctors, family. You can't put a
:48:50. > :48:56.patient on it without consulting the family. Very often there is no
:48:56. > :49:00.consent doing. Were you consulted? We were told that it was inoperable,
:49:00. > :49:04.and that is what they were going to do. Beforehand we were fighting for
:49:04. > :49:09.investigations to be taken. trusted their analysis and
:49:09. > :49:15.diagnosis? We didn't know, dial 999 and call the police. I know a lot
:49:15. > :49:19.of people who weren't consulted, their consent wasn't sought from
:49:19. > :49:24.the relatives, consent wasn't sought from the patients. That is
:49:24. > :49:29.absolutely wrong and not behind the development of the Liverpool Care
:49:29. > :49:32.Pathway, developed at Liverpool with Marie Curie cancer, it was
:49:32. > :49:36.about having the conversation around dying well. Just as an
:49:36. > :49:40.expectant mother has a birth plan, we should all expect to have a
:49:40. > :49:43.death plan. How we want to die, where we want to die, what kind of
:49:43. > :49:47.interventions, to not have that conversation was absolutely
:49:47. > :49:50.wrongment you were betrayed in that. I just want to come to another
:49:50. > :49:55.point about the financial incentives, I think it is totally
:49:56. > :50:00.wrong that hospitals are paid to put people on this path way. The
:50:00. > :50:04.money should go -- puttway, the money should go into training
:50:04. > :50:09.palliative care professionals. As we have heard with the Francis
:50:10. > :50:13.Report, and one of the suggestions is we need many move professionals
:50:13. > :50:18.trained in care for -- many more professionals trained in care for
:50:18. > :50:22.elderly people. There is a real danger in trying to
:50:22. > :50:26.put simplistic targets around healthcare which sin credibly
:50:26. > :50:29.complex. The absolute critical thing -- which is incredibly
:50:29. > :50:34.complex. The absolute critical thing is when you have a patient in
:50:34. > :50:38.front of you must re-think and review. Is there something else
:50:38. > :50:42.going on, is there something reversible. Richard, how often, I
:50:42. > :50:46.know this is an interest area of your's, how often, once somebody is
:50:46. > :50:50.on the Liverpool Care Pathway, has somebody within taken off it,
:50:50. > :50:53.because signs of recovery have been perceived? I do paediatric
:50:54. > :50:59.palliative care, we don't use the Liverpool Care Pathway in children.
:50:59. > :51:02.But the principle you are asking, how often do we go back and review?
:51:03. > :51:08.It is all the time, every minute and every day, we see a patient
:51:08. > :51:12.every day, this issue of, it is not so much a question of consent to go
:51:13. > :51:18.on the pathway, it is the fact that the conversation needs to take
:51:18. > :51:23.place, it was designed to facilitate that find of
:51:23. > :51:27.conversation, not get rid of it. It goes back to the individuality of
:51:27. > :51:30.the patient we are dealing with, rather than the NHS trying to shape
:51:30. > :51:34.theself through defining targets. Can I just saying, when you go back
:51:34. > :51:38.and review, about 3% of times you find that actually you were wrong.
:51:38. > :51:41.The person isn't dying, they are actually improving, because you
:51:41. > :51:45.have stopped whatever treatments you were doing, that were making
:51:45. > :51:50.them worse than they felt. Because that's the nature of medicine. You
:51:50. > :51:54.have to look after them. Is it under constant review when somebody
:51:54. > :51:58.is on the Liverpool Care Pathway? One of the problems with the
:51:58. > :52:02.Liverpool Care Pathway is decisions are made, and very nursing
:52:02. > :52:05.observations are stopped, simple blood tests are stopped, and nurt
:52:05. > :52:09.interventions are usually stopped, with -- further interventions are
:52:09. > :52:14.usually stopped, with the exception of oxygen, that is continued in 45%
:52:14. > :52:18.of cases. Most other interventions are stopped and very rarely started.
:52:18. > :52:24.How can the patient be properly reviewed if you don't have basic
:52:25. > :52:29.nurse observations, basic blood tests and so on. After three days
:52:29. > :52:36.three-quarters of the patients have died. But of those that are still
:52:36. > :52:44.alive, according to the audit that was done of 7,000 patients two
:52:44. > :52:48.years ago, only 20% were reassessed. You put your hand up a few minutes
:52:48. > :52:55.ago. What's particularly worrying is the vulnerable are the ones who
:52:55. > :52:59.are in most danger. How about the people who don't have families who
:52:59. > :53:02.may not be in the right mental capacity to understand what is
:53:02. > :53:07.happening around them. Yet again, we are seeing in this society that
:53:07. > :53:12.the most vulnerable are being put at risk, from windswepter fuel
:53:12. > :53:18.payments wanting to be cut down, taxes, yet again we are targeting
:53:18. > :53:22.the vulnerable. This Liverpool Care Pathway shouldn't be allowed if you
:53:22. > :53:26.can't 100% guarantee that there aren't risks like this happening.
:53:26. > :53:29.The people I know, the people I know who have come off the
:53:29. > :53:35.Liverpool Care Pathway have had families who have been strong
:53:35. > :53:39.enough and confident enough to defy the doctors and nurses, an old
:53:39. > :53:44.gentleman we know after three days he said that's it, I'm feeding my
:53:44. > :53:48.dad, I'm giving him some porridge and a drink, that old man, at 91
:53:48. > :53:52.years of age went home from hospital on Friday. But if his son
:53:52. > :53:56.hadn't had the guts to stand up to the doctors and nurses he would be
:53:56. > :54:01.dead by now. That's what's happening today in
:54:02. > :54:06.the NHS. Not in hospices. Is there a danger then that it become as
:54:06. > :54:14.matter of resources? There is a danger, but that's a misapplication
:54:14. > :54:20.of a good pathway, rather than the pathway is wrong. Extol the virtues
:54:20. > :54:25.of the pathway for those watching? It is more difficult for doctors to
:54:25. > :54:29.do nothing than it is to do something. There are times when to
:54:29. > :54:33.do nothing interventionist is the right thing to do for people. They
:54:33. > :54:36.need some help in doing that nothing and doing it well. The
:54:36. > :54:41.Liverpool Care Pathway provides the support for them to make those good
:54:41. > :54:46.decisions. That doesn't mean it is always implemented properly what we
:54:46. > :54:50.have heard is a number of example where is it has been implemented
:54:50. > :54:56.poorly. The paperwork is sloppy, it just has to be signed by one doctor,
:54:56. > :55:01.and a nurse. My father's paperwork is sloppy, the space for diagnosis
:55:01. > :55:05.is tiny. The lady there. Can I just speak up for doctors and nurses,
:55:05. > :55:08.any doctors and nurses that I have ever met in the NHS they are not
:55:08. > :55:11.angels of death that I feel people are painting them out here today,
:55:11. > :55:20.they care very much and they do have the patients' best interests
:55:20. > :55:24.at heart, from my experiences. I think with death it is just that
:55:24. > :55:29.people don't want to acknowledge it might be happening now. That they
:55:29. > :55:31.might actually be on their way out. There is an aspect where we are so
:55:31. > :55:36.afraid of death that we are fighting frontically, and then
:55:36. > :55:41.there is the other side of it where we view this -- frontically and
:55:41. > :55:47.then there is the other side where they are viewing this patient as
:55:47. > :55:51.someone we want to get out of there. My father's friend had Alzheimer's,
:55:52. > :55:56.I meant to go and see her for years, I went to see her in a comatose
:55:56. > :56:00.state, in the bed all skrunched up. She was my father's cousin, I was
:56:00. > :56:05.so glad to see her, she had Alzheimer's, but she recognised,
:56:05. > :56:09.not my name or her husband's name, but she did know her sister and
:56:09. > :56:12.cousin's name. We did have a conversation, about thank you for
:56:12. > :56:16.everything you have done in the past. Doctors have just got to
:56:16. > :56:21.remember that these people are grandparents, auoints, uncles,
:56:21. > :56:30.there is this -- uncle, auoints, and there is this human thing, it
:56:30. > :56:35.is not cutting it short as you say, but it is a really important event.
:56:35. > :56:39.That, in the vast majority of cases is what happens? Yes, it is a bity
:56:39. > :56:44.we have had palliative care in this country -- a pity we have had
:56:45. > :56:47.palliative care in this country for 30 years, we pioneer good care for
:56:47. > :56:50.the dying through the hospice movement, that was a qoit
:56:50. > :56:54.revolution in medicine, we are very proud -- quiet revolution in
:56:54. > :56:57.medicine, we are very proud of it, and it is applied widely. The
:56:57. > :57:00.tragedy is we have a problem, we never had this sort of controversy
:57:00. > :57:04.that we are seeing with the Liverpool Care Pathway over the
:57:04. > :57:08.hospice movement. Walk down any high street and you will see
:57:08. > :57:12.charity shops for hospices, there is a tremendous amount of support,
:57:13. > :57:17.and rightly, in this country, for the hospice movement, for hospices,
:57:17. > :57:23.for good care. And I entire agree with Baroness Finlay, that we must
:57:23. > :57:26.have a proper review of this. It is quite clear that there is a genuine
:57:27. > :57:30.concern about the way palliative care is happening in this country.
:57:30. > :57:35.And it is going to have to be a proper and thorough investigation
:57:35. > :57:41.as to what is going on. The sense that I get from relatives, and
:57:41. > :57:46.Jackie has just illustrated this very nicely, is that relatives and
:57:47. > :57:50.the public at large want good palliative care, everybody is
:57:50. > :58:00.pushing from the same side, they want doctors and nurses and the
:58:00. > :58:01.
:58:01. > :58:06.system to work well for those that are dying. That must happen.
:58:06. > :58:10.You only have a few seconds, this has been in place for quite some
:58:10. > :58:13.time hasn't it? If I may pick up on the comment that was made. Doctors
:58:13. > :58:18.and nurses, by and large, desperately want to do what's right
:58:18. > :58:22.by their patient. They don't get it right all the time. We have been