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Terminally ill children are being subjected to needless suffering by parents who hold out hope for a 'miraculous intervention' because of their deeply held religious beliefs, a new study suggests.

Concerns have been raised that parents who trust in divine intervention despite medical advice that there is no chance of survival are putting their children through aggressive and futile treatments.

The cases in which withdrawal or withholding of intensive care was considered to be in the child’s best interests were consistent with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health guidance.

Eleven of these cases (65 per cent) involved directly expressed religious claims that intensive care should not be stopped because of the expectation of divine intervention and a complete cure, together with the conviction that the opinion of the medical team was overly pessimistic and wrong.