Doctors need clarification on how to deal with patients they know to be considering assisted suicide.
Medical defence body MPS is concerned that doctors who become aware that their patient is considering ending their life could be perceived as facilitating it by providing the patient with their medical records upon request and be liable for criminal charges.
Patients organising an assisted suicide have to travel to Dignitas, the Swiss clinic, where it is legal. According to Swiss law, Dignitas can only accept people who are terminally ill or suffering from symptoms that cannot be relieved, so they cannot help people whose condition may improve either by itself or with treatment.
To ensure these conditions are met, Dignitas requires a patient’s medical records and a certificate of fitness to travel before an appointment can be made.
The House of Lords has called on the director of public prosecutions to look at the factors which would be taken into account in deciding whether to bring a prosecution in such cases. But the recent debate has focused on the role of family members not health professionals.
Dr Nick Clements, head of medical services at MPS, said: “Although patients in the UK have a legal right to request their medical records without giving a reason, if the patient is terminally ill the doctor may suspect that the patient is considering going elsewhere for an assisted suicide. Therefore doctors need clarification over whether they are at risk of prosecution if they provide reports about the patient’s condition or fitness to travel in the knowledge that this information will be passed on to clinics like Dignitas.
“We also need clarification over whether doctors have a duty to inform the authorities, either in the UK or elsewhere, if they are aware that their patient is intending to take their own life by way of assisted suicide,” said Clements.
MPS has written to the health secretary and will raise these issues with MPs when they return to Parliament in the autumn.
Clements added: “It is clear that this is a complex legal and ethical issue and a delicate emotional matter, however, the law remains unchanged at present and doctors who find themselves in such circumstances should be cautious and seek the advice of their medical defence organisation before they take any steps.”
The former lord chancellor Lord Falconer last month tried to amend the coroners and justice bill to make assisted dying lawful if two doctors confirmed the person in question was terminally ill and deemed competent to make such a decision. His amendment was defeated in the House of Lords.
A poll of more than 1,700 people carried out for the campaign group Dignity in Dying found two-thirds supported a change in the law. The Royal College of Nursing recently changed its position on assisted suicide from one of opposition to neutrality.
Tags: Assisted suicide
