Dear Wes Streeting...

We note also that an amendment which sought to insert clarity into the Bill that there would be no obligation on any care home or hospice to provide assisted suicide on their premises was rejected. Additionally, the Minister of State for Care’s comments in relation to that amendment wholly focused on the impact for individuals seeking an assisted death, but made no mention of the negative impact such an obligation would have upon the provision of palliative care or the detrimental effects on providers of such care.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are contrary to a foundational principle of palliative care which is ‘neither to hasten nor to postpone death’. It contradicts our core function of caring for people until their natural death. The paradigm shift required for staff to assist patients to take their own lives should not be underestimated. Hospices hold to an ethical framework of ‘do no harm’.  The vast majority of palliative care doctors would not provide assisted suicide. Many would leave their post if assisted suicide was proposed as part of their services.[2]

Some hospices may be forced to close should they be denied NHS funding because they are unwilling to participate in the provision of assisted suicide. 

Our hospices provide expert, community based, specialist palliative care which is world-leading in our sector.  We do not want to kill our patients, nor have them fearful that we may do just that. Let us do the job we are trained to do.

We urgently request clarity from the Government that no hospice will be denied public funding because they are unwilling to facilitate assisted suicide on their premises or be placed under a duty to provide such a service. 

Yours sincerely,