A woman who says her mother was “condemned” to death after being placed on the Liverpool Care Pathway without her knowledge is calling on the Government to force hospitals to stop using the controversial programme for elderly patients.

Mother-of-three Joan Flynn, who had just become a great-grandmother, died in the Royal Preston Hospital aged 90.

Mrs Flynn, who lived in the Bolton area of Bradford for more than 50 years before moving to Lancashire, had been admitted after a fall at home.

Her family say she was placed on the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) and a ‘do not resuscitate’ order was placed on her without any consultation with her family.

When they realised what was happening they pleaded with doctors to take her off the LCP which they did.

However, Mrs Flynn died on Sunday, July 24, 2011, six days after being admitted to hospital with a suspected broken rib.

The LCP is a programme for delivering palliative care to people with a terminal illness but it has attracted negative publicity with accusations doctors are using it as a “death pathway”.

Answering questions to MPs in Parliament yesterday as Commons Leader, former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley stressed it was important patients gave consent to being placed on the pathway.

Where they were unable to do so, it would be up to their families to give informed permission, he said.

Mrs Flynn’s daughter Susan Brook, 61, of Eccleshill, said: “I watched my mother being denied food and liquid and she passed away three days before her 91st birthday.

“I pleaded with the doctors and nurses to withdraw the LCP which they did 24 hours before she died, but they knew it was too late.”

Mrs Brook complained about her mum’s treatment but remained unsatisfied with the hospital’s response and has now referred the family’s concerns to the Healthservice Ombudsman.

She has also gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition calling on the Government to make it illegal for any hospital, doctor, nurse or care home to place any patient on the LCP who has not agreed and whose relatives have also not agreed for them to die this way.

“I have experienced first hand what the LCP and hospitals are doing and in my opinion they are actually killing off the elderly,” said Mrs Brook. A post-mortem examination revealed that Mrs Flynn died from heart failure.

Karen Partington, chief executive of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which manages the Royal Preston Hospital, said: “The Liverpool Care Pathway is a nationally recommended framework that aims to enable healthcare professionals to focus on patients’ needs, and maintain dignity and quality of life, in their last days and hours when death is expected.

“We always aim to ensure patients’ relatives are fully informed about the condition and planned care of their loved one.

“We have undertaken a full investigation into the care we provided to Mrs Flynn, and are assured that the clinical decisions taken were in her best interests.

“We understand that the end of life is a distressing time for families, and offer Mrs Flynn’s family our sincere condolences.”