Quote: The pathway, designed to ease the suffering of patients in their last hours or days of life, has come under intense scrutiny in recent months.
It can involve the removal of drugs, nutrition and hydration if they are judged to be of no benefit to the patient.
But a number of families have complained that their loved ones were put on the pathway without their knowledge, while some doctors have claimed it can hasten death.
The Health Secretary insisted the protocol was far better than alternative arrangements and allowed those close to death to be comfortable and to spend their last hours with their families.
Mr Hunt told LBC radio: “It’s a fantastic step forward, the Liverpool care pathway, and we need to be unabashed about that.
“It’s basically designed to bring hospice-style care to terminally-ill people in hospitals. Inevitably people do die in hospital but they weren’t getting the quality of care in those final few hours.”
Mr Hunt said many patients did not want to die “with lots of tubes going in and out of their body” but would prefer their final moments with their families to be “dignified”
“The Liverpool care pathway was developed with Marie Curie, with Macmillan, with Age UK and a number of other charities, to try and bring that dignity to people in their last moments,” he said.
A national audit recently disclosed that almost half of dying patients who were placed on the controversial pathway were not told that life-saving treatment had been withdrawn. | 
