Gordon Brown backs support for Royal Commission on end-of-life care

Westminster should act in response to strong public support for a Royal Commission on palliative care, Gordon Brown has said.

The former Prime Minister said the country should focus on looking at ways of “improving all-round hospice care” rather than deciding “whether to legislate on ways to die”.

Writing in The Guardian, Mr Brown backed the findings of a recent Focaldata poll, where almost seven out of ten people favoured an enquiry into end-of-life care before MPs consider removing end-of-life protections for vulnerable people.

Comprehensive care

Brown, who was Prime Minster between 2007 and 2010, said: “Making possible a good death for all is one of the last great, yet unattained causes.”

70% of the public want to prioritise social end-of-life care before thinking about assisted dying Gordon Brown

But, he explained, “assisted dying is not the only option available, nor even a good option when set against the palliative support that could be available”.

Referring to the poll, he observed: “more than half of the country is not confident that the government will be able to pay for their end-of-life care, while 51% think assisted dying will inevitably discriminate against those who cannot afford end-of-life support.

“For these reasons, 70% of the public want to prioritise social end-of-life care before thinking about assisted dying and I believe that as part of that, a commission on end-of-life care should devise a thought-through, fully funded, 10-year strategy for improved and comprehensive palliative care.”

‘Complex problem’

Commissioned by campaign group Care Not Killing (CNK), Focaldata asked a representative sample of 5,000 British adults to what extent they agreed or disagreed with arguments against a change in the law on assisted suicide.

When asked whether Labour should prioritise sorting out end-of-life care before thinking about assisted suicide, 66 per cent of those polled agreed.

Over half of those surveyed (55 per cent), believed the “current state of the NHS is likely to push some people into assisted dying if it were made legal”.

CNK Chief Executive Dr Gordon MacDonald said the”poll results could not be clearer”, and welcomed the recognition that assisted suicide “is an incredibly complex problem which needs to be taken away from the heat of political debate and given to a royal commission”.