Assisted suicide privatisation ‘an option’

Assisted suicide could be outsourced to private companies if Kim Leadbeater’s Bill is passed, Government sources have told The Times.

The newspaper reports that ministers have “no in-principle objection” to private clinics helping vulnerable patients to kill themselves.

Last year, Health Secretary Wes Streeting voted against MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill over the unsatisfactory state of NHS palliative care and concerns it could increase the risk of coercion. A second vote is expected before the summer.

Contracted out

The newspaper was told that England and Wales “could end up with what you have in the States and Australia, where a ­cohort of doctors specialise in assisted dying”.

Andrew Green, Chairman of the British Medical Association’s ethics committee, said that his trade union supported “a separate service outside of existing pathways”, but accepted this may be “delivered outside of the NHS”.

The Department of Health and Social Care responded that although a change in the law on assisted suicide was “a matter for parliament, not government”, it had “a responsibility” to make sure any proposals were “effective and ­enforceable.”

“I fear that this bill will lead to the marketisation of death and dying.”

In light of today’s Times story that assisted suicide might be outsourced, @dsnorthnorth’s prescient speech from January 22: pic.twitter.com/An0hx5K7Un

— Dan Hitchens (@ddhitchens) March 3, 2025

Ignoring anorexics

Writing in the same paper, columnist Hadley Freeman expressed dismay over MP Dr Simon Opher’s recent remarks to the committee tasked with scrutinising the Leadbeater Bill, that it should not get “too hung up on anorexia”.

Hadley recounted how, on her fifth hospital admission for anorexia, “I made a new friend”. Nikki Hughes was also anorexic. Despite having a positive outlook on life, Hughes would die as a consequence of the illness two years later — the hospital responsible for her care claimed it could not “override her wishes” to starve herself to death.

She explained: “Right-to-die campaigners love to talk about autonomy, but such terms are meaningless when it comes to women whose minds are crazed by starvation”.

The columnist concluded: “It is impossible for most people to comprehend the mind of an anorexic, which hisses that death is preferable to eating.” She said it was tragic that MPs should decide “not to get hung up” on those who find themselves in such a predicament.

Normalising suicide

Last week a Government suicide prevention advisor warned that legalising assisted suicide undermines society’s long-standing commitment to ending all suicides.

Professor Louis Appleby, who chairs the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisory Group, told The Guardian that Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill implies that certain suicides should be encouraged that “in every other sense we would try to prevent”.

He said: “I’m worried once you say some suicides are acceptable, some self-inflicted deaths are understandable and we actually provide the means to facilitate the self-inflicted death.

“That seems to me to be so far removed from what we currently do and from the principle that’s always guided us on despairing individuals, that it’s an enormous change with far-reaching implications.”