Kim Leadbeater outlines safeguards as some MPs worry proposal does not bar doctors in England and Wales from suggesting option
Campaigners in October backing Kim Leadbeater’s bill, which she said was ‘potentially one of the biggest things we will do as members of parliament’.Campaigners in October backing Kim Leadbeater’s bill, which she said was ‘potentially one of the biggest things we will do as members of parliament’.But MPs opposed to the measure said they were deeply concerned by several components, including that the proposed legislation did not bar doctors from suggesting assisted dying as an option to patients.
The Conservative MP Kit Malthouse, who backs the bill, said he thought a significant number of MPs who had voted against the measure in 2015 had changed their minds.But Dr Peter Prinsley, a Labour MP who is also a consultant, said he believed some of the new, younger MPs were wavering. “I’m not as confident of this thing passing as I was before I started having these conversations,” he said.
Leadbeater said the numbers of those taking up the option would be low because of the strict criteria: assisted dying would be offered only to patients with a terminal diagnosis with a prognosis of less than six months. It would not be available to people with longer to live who may be suffering, such as those in the earlier stages of motor neurone disease.
But Dr David Nicholls, a consultant on the panel, said he would be disinclined to do so. “That’s not something I would necessarily ,” he said. “The risk is, you don’t know what that patient thinks.”Two doctors and a high court judge must sign off any decision, which Leadbeater said would mean a full hearing with evidence from the patient and doctors – although in practice the judge would check only that the terms of the act had been met, rather than examining motivation.
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