Kim Leadbeater’s increasingly unpopular assisted suicide Bill has been dealt another blow after the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) announced it cannot support it.
One of the so-called safeguards in the legislation is that applications for assisted suicide will be dealt with by a three-person panel including a lawyer, a social worker, and a psychiatrist. This was only introduced because the judiciary said High Court involvement was not practical.
Now, ahead of today’s debate in the House of Commons, Dr Lade Smith, the President of the RCPsych, has announced that despite the psychiatrists’ professional body’s official stance remaining ‘neutral’, it cannot support the Bill “as it stands”, and urged MPs to prevent the “inadequate” proposals from becoming law.
In a statement, RCPsych outlined a number of concerns, and said that “Assisted dying/Assisted suicide (AD/AS) is not a treatment”, adding: “AD/AS does not aim to improve a person’s health and its intended consequence is death. The Bill does not specify whether AD/AS is considered a treatment option and this ambiguity has major implications in law in England and Wales. Should this Bill proceed, it should be explicit that AD/AS is not a treatment option.”
It also highlighted that terminal illness is a known risk factor for suicide, and questioned what role a psychiatrist would play on the three-person panel, explaining: “If this Bill proceeds in England and Wales, any role a psychiatrist plays in an AD/AS process should be consistent with the core duties of the profession, including determining whether a person’s wish to die can be remedied or treated.”
It added that “there are not enough consultant psychiatrists to do what the Bill asks”, and that this is compounded by the fact some psychiatrists will choose to conscientiously object – a right that RCPscyh said must be strengthened.
“Professionals must be able to conscientiously object to involvement in any part of the process: We are pleased to see that the Bill no longer requires medical professionals who do not wish to be involved to refer a person to another clinician, but they are still required to signpost patients to information on AD/AS. For some psychiatrists who wish to conscientiously object, this would constitute being involved in the AD/AS process.”