Palliative care doctors are warning that assisted suicide will be seen as “cheaper” than caring for people who are terminally ill and are calling for greater investment in palliative care, rather than introducing assisted suicide.
In a letter to Labour MP Kim Leadbeater expressing that they “strongly oppose” her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a group of 24 palliative care doctors wrote, “It hasn’t gone unnoticed that assisted dying is financially a cheaper solution than providing holistic care to those who are dying”.
The doctors also stated that the Government should be putting resources into palliative care instead of assisted suicide, writing “Thousands of people dedicate their lives to walking beside people and their families facing death. Those dying need properly resourced care”.
A survey of palliative care doctors who are members of the Association for Palliative Medicine found that 82% oppose the introduction of assisted suicide. The results of the Association for Palliative Medicine survey have been mirrored in a more recent survey of doctors by the British Medical Association, which found that 83% of palliative care doctors oppose a change in the law to introduce assisted suicide, while only 6% supported such a change.
Cutbacks on cash for palliative care
Dr Matthew Doré, the honorary secretary of the Association for Palliative Medicine, underlined the lack of Government funding and the palliative care sector being largely reliant on charitable donations.
He said that laws “are more than rules – they send social messages. The social message being sent here is that, essentially, assisted dying, removing yourself from the picture, is what the state wants, and leaving palliative care to charity. The NHS is supposed to be ‘cradle to grave’, not ‘cradle to very old’”.
These worries have been echoed by Dr Amy Proffitt, Consultant in Palliative Medicine at Barts Health NHS Trust and former President of The Association for Palliative Medicine, who shared her concerns in September that “pumping money into assisted dying will mean that the NHS cuts back on cash for palliative care”. Dr Proffitt emphasised the lack of resources and attention being put into palliative care, saying “Better to focus on improving NHS palliative care rather than introducing assisted dying. Yet that doesn’t even seem to be on the agenda”.
Their concerns appear to have been confirmed by the decision of Health Secretary Wes Streeting to vote against Leadbeater’s Bill.
An unnamed Labour MP said “Wes said that palliative care isn’t good enough, then added he hadn’t intended to get into the discussion about assisted dying, but told us his view”. Another MP said that the Health Secretary had been “explicit” that he would vote against Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill, saying that the emphasis should be on palliative care.
Worrying cost-saving proposals
The dubious cost-saving benefits of assisted suicide have been discussed in various jurisdictions, such as the notorious 2020 Canadian report ‘Cost estimate for Bill C-7, Medical Assistance in Dying’, which estimated a $149 million saving in healthcare costs from euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada in 2021.
In the 2020 report Counting the cost of denying assisted dying, Scottish academics David Shaw and Alec Morton proposed a worrying argument that legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia in the UK would provide significant financial savings, well into the millions. The money saved on potential healthcare costs, they suggested, could then be used to fund other treatments or “could be spent addressing other moral challenges faced by the health system”.
The cost-saving argument was also previously proposed in Guernsey. In 2023, Government accounts revealed that Guernsey has a £135 million deficit. Towards the end of August last year, Lester Queripel, a Deputy in the States of Guernsey, suggested that savings could be made from ending the lives of Guernseymen through assisted suicide. “Many people don’t want to keep on living and I think we need to put a figure on that”, he declared.
People feeling like a financial burden was also highlighted as a good thing earlier this year by Matthew Parris, former MP and Times columnist. He wrote that he would “welcome” the social and cultural pressure “on the terminally ill to hasten their own deaths so as ‘not to be a burden’ on others or themselves”.
He stated that he does not apologise for referring to “human beings as units” and “For a society as much as for an individual, self-preservation must shine a harsh beam on to the balance between input and output”.
He also stated that questions about finance, such as “How much is all this costing relatives and the health service? How much of a burden are we placing on those who love us?” would become “common practice” and that that would be a good thing. Andrew Selous MP said he was “deeply shocked” by the article.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “Palliative care doctors have underlined yet more problems with Leadbeater’s dangerous assisted suicide Bill. They correctly highlight the woeful lack of investment into palliative care, as well as a genuine danger that assisted suicide will be viewed as a cheaper solution than high-quality palliative and hospice care, which is what people at the end of life really need. The Health Secretary has confirmed he will vote against the Bill, saying ‘the focus should be on palliative care’”.
“It’s time for the Government to listen to the palliative care experts and Health Secretary on this matter, and to put resources into palliative care rather than assisted suicide”.
