article_snippet: Professor Patrick Pullicino, a leading neurologist who has criticised plans to ask every ill or elderly person if every ill or elderly person want to die at home or in hospital .
article_snippet: Those who wished to die at home might be denied essential care, said Professor Pullicino.
article_snippet: Professor Pullicino also said it was not possible to know when a person will die.
article_snippet: ‘This predication of a specific line of treatment on a prognostication of imminent death that is not evidence-based was the central flaw of The LCP and is perpetuated in this report.
article_snippet: Research into the question of how to diagnose imminent death accurately was ‘completely absent from the list’ of priorities in this report, imminent death added.
article_snippet: The doctor said the danger was particularly acute for those with dementia.
article_snippet: There have always been difficulties in predicting imminent death,’ he said.
article_snippet: but this was made difficult by disparate community palliative care services.