BBC Health Correspondent James Westhead outlines events to date

A General Medical Council professional conduct committee will decide whether Dr Ken Taylor is guilty of serious professional misconduct.

The committee decided on Thursday that the facts in the case against 51-year-old Dr Taylor had been proved following an eight-day hearing.

The GMC was told that Dr Taylor ordered staff at Oxford House Nursing Home in Preston to stop feeding the 85-year-old patient, known only as Mrs X.

She had suffered a series of strokes, and weighed less than four stone when she died in August 1995.

The only way she could be kept alive was to force feed her through a syringe.

Inhumane and stressful

Dr Taylor had told the hearing he took the decision to withdraw the food supplement because feeding the woman was "inhumane" and "stressful" to her family and medical staff.

The patient was bedridden and was also diagnosed with senile dementia and mild Parkinson's disease.

Dr Taylor, who denies serious professional misconduct, said he withdrew the food supplement Fresubin to the pensioner after consulting her family.

Mrs X's four daughters all spoke in support of the GP at the GMC hearing.

Police decided not to prosecute Dr Taylor but the GMC decided to investigate after nurses at the home reported the doctor.

Some of the nurses were so upset by the doctor's order to stop feeding Mrs X that they continued to secretly give her the food supplement.

Miss Rosalind Foster, counsel for the GMC, told the hearing: "I don't seek to portray Dr Taylor as a callous man but it is for you to decide if he lost sight of medical ethics and objectivity in this case."

Mrs X moved into the Oxford House nursing home in Garstang Road, Preston, Lancashire, in March 1991.

Dr Taylor, who was Mrs X's GP and also doctor to two of her daughters and their families, was a regular visitor to the home.

He prescribed Mrs X Fresubin from October 1994.

Miss Foster told the hearing: "It was administered to her orally via a syringe. But on 19 June 1995 Dr Taylor gave instructions to the nursing staff at the home that the Fresubin should be stopped.

"It is not possible to detect what it was that triggered him to make this decision.

"This was a significant medical management change though nothing was recorded contemporaneously."

Police statement

In a statement to police after Mrs X's death, Dr Taylor told police that he withdrew the food supplement because Mrs X was "gaining little nourishment from it and was choking on it".

He told police: "Withdrawing the food supplement was discussed between myself, the family and her nursing staff throughout 1994 and 1995.

"Her daughters asked me if the Fresubin was keeping their mother alive.

"I told them that if it stopped she would obviously starve to death.

"It was apparent that the staff at the nursing home were keen to keep feeding her."

In a letter to the GMC written in January 1997 Dr Taylor said: "I believe the treatment of Mrs X was ethical and appropriate. I did not kill Mrs X.

"I was aware that her care was stressful for her family and for her nurses.

"I believe that her death on many occasions was imminent.