Legalising assisted dying in the UK could come at the ‘expense of’ other NHS services, Wes Streeting has warned.
Speaking at the NHS Providers conference on Wednesday, the Health and Social Care Secretary said he had commissioned a review of the costs of implementing the measure, as MPs prepare to vote on the issue later this month.
He said: ‘Assisted dying would be a big change. There would be resource implications for doing it. And those choices would come at the expense of other choices. If parliament chooses to go ahead with assisted dying, it is making a choice that this is an area to prioritise for investment. And we’d have to work through those implications.’
He also added that it was a ‘chilling slippery slope,’ if people felt compelled to end their own lives as a cost-saving measure.
- Citizens’ jury calls for legalising assisted dying
- Wes Streeting to vote against assisted dying law
- Calls for Government to fix ‘patchy’ end-of-life care for the UK’s ageing population
Kim Leadbeater, Labour backbencher, published a private members’ bill earlier this week, with MPs voting on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on November 29. Under the bill, terminally ill adults with less than six months to live will have the right to end their own life. The substance would be prepared by a doctor, but it would be self-administered by a patient.
In addition to costs, Streeting also confirmed he will vote against assisted dying because he was worried about palliative and end-of-life care ‘not being good enough to give people a real choice’.
However, he said that he has ‘respect for colleagues who are taking a different view,’ but cautioned that if the bill was passed, funding would need to come from other services because it has not been included in the Government’s Budget.
Leadbeater said she was disappointed by Streeting’s comments and was in breach of the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case’s instructions, requesting MPs to ‘exercise discretion’ and ‘not take part in the public debate’.
Former Labour minister Baroness Margaret Hodge also criticised Streeting for speaking out too much in public about the assisted dying bill. ‘I’m a great Wes Streeting fan but I think on this issue he should do what the cabinet secretary said and just hold fire a little bit. If you look at the NHS budget, most of it goes on the last six months of life … to argue that this is going to cost extra sounds to me a bit daft.’
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer had previously supported assisted dying, but the Government has pledged to remain neutral on the issue and all MPs will be able to vote according to their conscience, rather than along party lines.
If the bill is passed, the UK would join Switzerland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US state of Oregon, in enabling people with terminal illnesses to end their own lives if they wish.