Latest news with #TerminallyIllAdultsBill
Daily Record
27-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Record
Stirling MP explains support for "compassionate" assisted dying plans
Chris Kane MP used his free vote on the legislation to express his support for proposals to regulate assisted dying for terminally ill patients. Stirling's MP has explained the reasoning behind his backing for a historic assisted dying bill which narrowly secured support in the House of Commons last week. The Terminally Ill Adults Bill, proposed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, gives terminally ill adults in England and Wales the chance to have the right to end their own lives if certain criteria are met. The passage of the legislation at Westminster - which gained support by a margin of just 23 votes - follows a similar vote at Holyrood where the Scottish Parliament also gave its backing for proposals which would legislate for assisted dying in Scotland. In the Commons vote last week, an emotionally charged debate saw MPs recount personal stories of seeing friends and relatives die as well as sharing both positives and concerns related to the legislation. Stirling and Strathallan MP Chris Kane was one of those asked to vote on the bill - and he was one of 314 to support its passage. Speaking to the Observer, Mr Kane said his vote would give people the opportunity to 'end their suffering on their own terms' and said the current arrangements had the impact of prolonging someone's suffering in a way deemed 'deeply unjust'. He said: 'My decision to support the bill was shaped by careful thought and compassion, taken with full awareness of the moral and ethical complexities involved. 'I understand that some will be disappointed, and I want to acknowledge the sincerity and strength of feeling among those who oppose it. I respect those views, just as I hope my own are respected in return. 'In the United Kingdom today, individuals with mental capacity can legally refuse life-sustaining treatment, even if that decision leads to their death. 'Yet they cannot seek medical assistance to take an approved substance that would allow them to end their suffering on their own terms. For me, that is a contradiction that cannot be ignored. 'The current system can prolong suffering in ways that feel deeply unjust. 'This bill seeks to change that by offering terminally ill people the ability to make a considered and safeguarded choice at the end of life. 'I believe it is time to offer a compassionate, safe and clearly regulated choice for those nearing the end of their lives who want to take it.' Mr Kane was also quick to praise the general level of debate from politicians on both sides of the argument - with members given the opportunity to exercise a rare 'free vote', away from party lines. He added: 'In recent weeks and months, we have seen Parliament at its best: informed, considered and passionate, with respect shown across the House for those on all sides of the debate. 'I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on the Assisted Dying Bill, reading thoughtful emails from constituents, reviewing detailed briefings from organisations both for and against, and hosting constituency roundtables to listen to personal stories and different perspectives. 'I have followed the bill closely throughout its parliamentary journey and believe that it has evolved into a more balanced and carefully constructed piece of legislation than it was at the start.' The Westminster legislation will now head to the House of Lords for scrutiny and further votes before it has the chance of becoming law south of the border.
Spectator
22-06-2025
- Health
- Spectator
The truth about palliative care
Watching MPs debate the Terminally Ill Adults Bill in recent weeks has left me and fellow clinicians wondering how many of them have been to a specialist palliative care unit. It has raised a concern about whether people understand what palliative care actually provides, and what we clinicians actually do. How many people have an idea about what hospices and palliative care teams can help with, and would knowing more about such services strengthen calls to make them core parts of NHS provision? Palliative care and assisted dying have seemed in opposition in recent weeks, with people picking sides as though they were rival football teams. I work in a sector that has had to rely heavily on charity and fundraising, which only goes so far. Last year was one of the worst in terms of fundraising for one of our local hospice charities. Palliative care is about living, joy, fun and thinking about your legacy Specialist palliative care in all settings is in a crisis of under-resourcing. We know that palliative care provision is patchy, and inequitable, with some geographies, settings and patient groups receiving completely unacceptable levels of care. Many don't have seven-day on-call cover, when the reality is that crises at the end of life can occur at any time of a given week. Palliative care is not all about inpatient hospices for those who are in the last days of life. We have (in some parts of England and Wales) community teams, outpatient clinics, support teams in general hospitals, day services and out-of-hours on-call provision. We often get involved from diagnosis onward, get to know some patients over several years, and even discharge them again if they feel better and their symptoms improve. And when it comes to dying, most deaths are uncomplicated. Many will not require much more involvement than good local district nursing teams and their usual GP care if systems are working locally. We in palliative care probably need to do far more to dispel some of the narratives that many recent bad death anecdotes have brought up in the assisted dying debate. Yes, bad deaths certainly happen, but many people die peacefully each week, and such 'ordinary dying' is, of course, not reported on. In England and Wales in 2023, over 500,000 deaths were registered. Even ten bad deaths amongst those would be newsworthy, of course, but it does not constitute a norm. It was different when I was a junior doctor in the early 2000's, when I saw some very bad deaths and there was zero palliative care provision in some of the English hospitals I worked in. Hospices being described as full of dying patients, their pain poorly controlled and their senses dulled with high-dose morphine drips, is not the reality. The '20 bad deaths a day' statistic that was highlighted by assisted dying pressure groups has been debunked as unreliable. And faecal vomiting, so vividly described by some MPs, is more talked and written about than it is actually seen on wards and in communities. When I worked at our local hospice, over half the inpatients would be discharged back home again after they had received help with their symptoms. This was often a surprise to them, because many appeared to assume that you never really leave a hospice alive. Some of the older images of hospices full of dying people seem to prevail in the collective memories, when in fact modern-day 'palliative care inpatient units' actually have a rather different role. The same goes for palliative care more generally: much of it happens in the community. I have seen many of my palliative clinic patients for years, and they live life alongside their terminal illness. Always knowing that time may be short, perhaps one pneumonia away from potentially dying, but equally living life to the full whilst they still can, jetting off on holiday, or going clubbing, hiking, cycling and working, and generally being part of their local communities. One of my younger patients recently told me in a video consultation that she just doesn't fit the 'image of a cancer/palliative patient' that people in her environment have come to expect. Many of my patients hold jobs and are on reasonable doses of morphine or oxycodone, without too much in the way of side effects, so they can actually get on with their lives. They drive their cars, perfectly legally. We also review whether they still require the meds, sometimes weaning them off opioids once a reversible pain crisis is over. All this makes predicting a diagnosis of less than six months with any form of accuracy quite hard. The recent debates have made many of us working in this area feel somewhat downhearted, partly because there are a lot of clichés about this area of work that will just never go away. But it has made us think about ordinary 'living with dying' in our society, and how we show that it can be done well. Some of us try our best to frame this world in a more positive light, and I know quite a few patients who are quite happy to help in this, which of course is a good start. A number of my patients have agreed to become part of information campaigns to talk far more positively about palliative care and living with dying, including good advance and future care planning for when their illnesses progress. We have produced videos together on why you may want to consider having a plan for when you become less able to communicate your views, or are getting closer to the end. Sound dreary? Not if you take my patient Keith's approach to it, who sold tickets to his own funeral party. A lot of palliative care clinicians, including Dr Kathryn Mannix with her books (including With the End in Mind) have sought to demystify this area of life and also to inject a bit of much-needed humour and warmth into 'ordinary dying'. It's poorly understood, and people like to brush it away. With assisted suicide, it now risks being medicalised even further and also brought forward quite considerably for some people. News and media narratives don't always help: 'All the medical care stopped and then the patient was for palliation only' or 'They were then just for palliative care'. If 'no longer for active care' means they are now for palliative care, I invite anyone to join our very active ward rounds with patients who receive blood transfusions, iv antibiotics, immunotherapy and scans, all within balance and reason and in close consultation with patients and families. We actively review and discharge some of our patients because, whilst they may have a disease that will likely be life-limiting and their risk of dying is that bit higher, they may still have years ahead of them. Amongst some of my patients and their families, this sometimes raises a chuckle. 'We thought: palliative care, that's it, just a few more days…' Not so. Recent heated debates may have left some with the impression that most deaths in the UK are bad, that palliative care cannot do anything and that hospices are ghoulish places that only give morphine infusions. Think opium den, just with doctors and nurses. This is completely wrong. Palliative care is evidence-based, follows guidelines and reduces strong opioids as much as it starts or increases them (careful titration according to evidence-based guidelines). Palliative care can bring cheer; it brings out the best in people, thinking outside multiple boxes and helping people focus on important achievements in life: getting rid of a nasty infection with intravenous antibiotics, getting a blood transfusion to improve anaemia, receiving immunotherapy from the oncologists, radiotherapy, being pain-free to go for a bracing walk in the Cotswolds, getting to a Millwall game, getting married in Vegas, getting to a Slipknot concert, just being yourself. Whether you've got six days, six weeks, six months or six years left to live (and who knows?). Wherever you stand on matters like assisted dying, good palliative and end-of-life care should never be under-prioritised. We need better funding and in parallel we need to convey very clearly that palliative care is about living, joy, fun, thinking about your legacy and working with a team to get on top of the big challenges. It's only a little bit about dying. Let's call it assisted living.
The Sun
21-06-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Assisted dying puts price on my head, says disabled peer Lord Kevin Shinkwin as he speaks out against the bill
A DISABLED peer said he fears he would not be alive today if assisted dying was already legal. Lord Kevin Shinkwin said the Terminally Ill Adults Bill 'puts a price on my head' and he would have felt pressure to agree to having a lethal injection over fear of being a burden. 1 The Tory's warning comes as campaigners vow to fight the assisted dying bill in the Lords after MPs narrowly backed it by just 23 votes on Friday. Lord Shinkwin, 54, is a disability rights campaigner who has a severe form of brittle bone disease. He said: 'I am a disabled person. I cost the NHS, over the course of my lifetime, probably several million pounds to keep me alive. 'This Bill would put a price on my head — on the head of so many disabled people.' Asked if he feared he would not be alive today if the assisted dying law was in force, Lord Shinkwin said: 'I think you have hit the nail on the head. "Absolutely. I was in intensive care a few months ago, and had a doctor come over to me when I was extremely vulnerable and said, 'Have you considered assisted dying?', I would have felt under real pressure to do that.' Lord Shinkwin said he and other peers will now amend the Bill so it has greater safeguards. As it is a private member's Bill and not a government initiative, some peers are vowing to try to block it altogether. ASSISTED DYING VOTE What Happens Next? - With the Commons backing the Bill, it now moves to the House of Lords for detailed debate and scrutiny. - Peers can suggest amendments, which would send the Bill back to the Commons — a process known as 'ping pong'. - But because this is a major conscience issue, the unelected Lords are unlikely to block it outright after it passed the elected House. - Supporters hope it will win final approval and receive Royal Assent by October, officially becoming law. - A four-year implementation period will follow, allowing time to establish the new system, including expert panels and regulatory safeguards.
The Independent
21-06-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson raises concerns for disabled community after government passes assisted dying bill
Former Paralympian, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson has raised her concerns for the disabled community in the wake of the government passing the assisted dying bill through the House of Commons. Grey-Thompson sits in the House of Lords and has stated she hopes to amend the bill and make it stronger so that disabled people are less likely to be coerced into agreeing to assisted dying. The baroness said, "Right now a lot of disabled people are worried and this is the job of the Lords, line by line legislation." The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was approved by 341 votes to 291 at its third reading in the House of Commons, a majority of 23.
Daily Mail
21-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
This ticking timebomb of an assisted dying Bill will lead us to a moral abyss, writes professor DAVID S. ODERBERG
The passing of the euphemistically named Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is a terrible milestone in the decline of medicine and medical ethics in the UK. MPs voted for it by a very narrow margin after some withdrew their support following the second reading, and the Bill will now head to the Lords, where it is unlikely to be significantly amended. Much of the impassioned debate revolved around crucial questions regarding safeguards against abuse, worries about possible coercion, and the need to focus more on palliative care, among many other legitimate and serious concerns. What seems largely to have escaped scrutiny is this simple fact: our MPs have approved a piece of legislation that is a euthanasia Bill in all but name. Let me explain why. The Bill makes it clear in multiple places that the person's death must be 'self-administered'. Clause 23 is explicit that the 'coordinating doctor' is not authorised by the Bill to administer the lethal substance. All they are allowed to do is 'prepare' the substance for self-administration, 'prepare a medical device' to enable the patient to self-administer, or 'assist' the patient to do so. The death-dealing act itself must be performed by the patient. Hence there is, technically, no euthanasia – no killing by the doctor of the patient. There is, however, the smallest of hints that all is not quite as it seems. According to clause 11, the 'assessing doctor' must 'discuss with the person their wishes in the event of complications arising in connection with the self-administration of an approved substance'. What could that mean? Well, the patient may, quite simply, find it difficult to self-administer. They might bungle it, as should be expected in such a fraught and stressful situation. Suppose they fail to self-administer despite making all the right requests at the right time. Or, even worse, suppose they partly self-administer but do not finish the job, and they are writhing in agony, not dead but in a terrible state. What then? I am no prophet, and I will not put a precise timeline on the following – save to say that it will all become clear in a handful of years. This Bill will be modified to allow active killing. Imagine a patient with motor neurone disease, or advanced multiple sclerosis, or late-stage Huntington's disease. Suppose, as is likely, they cannot self-administer, yet their request for 'assisted dying' is lucid, fixed, and follows the procedures in the Bill. By the letter of the law, their request must be denied. Yet surely this, from the viewpoint of the legislation's supporters, would be a perverse outcome. Here is a person in an awful state, who fits the Bill's definition of someone who is terminally ill (death reasonably expected within six months). Their circumstances are no different from anyone else entitled to request assisted dying except for the fact that they are physically unable to kill themselves. Should they be denied the right to a so-called 'peaceful death'? If so, the supposed injustice would be obvious: they would be, effectively, punished for their own misfortune. Through no fault of their own, they do not meet the Bill's criteria. Yet their medical condition could be, in terms of disability and subjective suffering, much worse than that of someone who does fit the bill and is allowed an assisted death. Could such an 'unjust' outcome be what Parliament intended? Clearly not. So what will happen is that euthanasia advocates will, as sure as night follows day, bring a test case involving someone with a dreadful affliction such as one of the ones I just mentioned. They will say to the court: 'Your Honour, it is simply unjust and perverse that my client can have no access to assisted dying, simply through no fault of their own, and even though their suffering is among the worst imaginable.' A judge will then do one of two things. They might appeal to clause 11 and 'read into' the legislation an implied legislative intent to allow active killing – euthanasia – in such a 'rare' case, and in similar ones. But I think this would be a stretch too far, judicially speaking. It is more likely that they will disallow euthanasia in the case before them but refer the matter back to Parliament for reconsideration, so as to remedy the unfair and unreasonable outcome of a badly drafted Bill. Badly drafted with intent? That is not for the judge to decide. So it will go back to Parliament, the boosters of euthanasia will storm the gates (metaphorically), and a sympathetic MP will table an amendment to remedy the injustice. And, hey presto, you will have euthanasia. The active killing of patients will be the law of the land. Our legislators, who once presided over a system that was the envy of the world for its palliative care, its hospices, its help for the most vulnerable to live out their days with dignity, should hang their heads in shame. The fact that yesterday's decision followed Tuesday's appalling vote to decriminalise abortion up to birth means we have descended yet further into the moral abyss.
