March 24, 2015

very sick children: treatment at any cost?

Doctors dealing with end of life care for children and young people will be issued with new guidance by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), setting out when it can be considered no longer in the best interests of the child to prolong life at all costs.

In the 10 years since the last version of the guidance was published, babies born at 22-25 weeks have better chances of survival and palliative care for children has become more widely available. But for some newborns, or children who have suffered serious infectious disease or catastrophic injury, very difficult decisions need to be taken by medics about how to act in that child’s best interests.

“Making decisions to limit treatment in life-limiting and life-threatening conditions in children”, written by medics, lawyers and ethicists, will provide an ethical and legal framework for doctors and provides three sets of circumstances when limiting treatment can be considered: when life is limited in quantity, in quality, or when informed, competent refusal of treatment is given.

The authors of the report came to the SMC to discuss the details behind some of the hardest decisions in medicine.

Speakers:

Dr Joe Brierley, Chair of the RCPCH Ethics and Law Advisory Committee and a consultant in Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care at Great Ormond Street Hospital

Dr Vic Larcher, Co-author of the guidance and a retired consultant in Paediatrics and Ethics at Great Ormond Street Hospital

Dr Simon Newell, Consultant Neonatologist and member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health