Call for assisted dying safeguards
Patients must have ‘informed choice’ with access to palliative care, doctors agree
Doctors must not be pressured to be involved in assisted dying and the costs of new services should fall outside existing health and care budgets.
That was the overwhelming message from delegates at the BMA’s annual representative meeting (ARM) in Liverpool today (23/06) – who demanded the Government take action to ensure already stretched services and resources are protected from the financial impacts of the assisted dying bill going through parliament.
Doctors also called for additional funding for new services to be matched by money for palliative care, mental health, and social care services – with palliative care described as a service ‘wrongfully under-resourced’, with ‘few specialists’ and which was often a ‘postcode lottery’.
Proposing the motion Gateshead GP Samuel Parker said patients deserve ‘rapid access to high-quality, holistic, palliative care when needed – 24 hours a day’.
The assisted dying bill passed its final stage in the House of Commons last week with 314 MPs voting for the bill and 291 voting against – a majority of just 23.
The bill was first debated nearly seven months ago and has now been through all the necessary steps in the House of Commons. It will now move to the House of Lords.
North Essex palliative medicine registrar Sarah Foot supported the motion at the ARM. She said: ‘Our united voice can help influence the bill in the House of Lords later this year. Be proud and proactive and stand up for our most vulnerable patients.’
Dr Foot added: ‘Choice is only choice if it is an informed choice. This is about us making sure that patients know their options and have access to palliative care. I meet so many patients who wish they could die from their disease. But I know that when they come to me, they come to my colleagues in hospices, they get the pain relief they need, they get the listening ear they need, they get the hospice support, and they change their minds.
‘What is uncomfortable is patients choosing to die when they haven’t had access to palliative care and don’t know what is available to them.’
