This is Prospect’s rolling coverage of the assisted dying debate. This page will be updated with the latest from our correspondent, Mark Mardell. Read the rest of our coverage here
Kim Leadbeater is working on an amendment that would ensure that, if her bill becomes law, assisted dying would be free and available on the NHS. A week ago the Times ran an intriguing story (with a follow-up the next day) suggesting that the government was considering outsourcing the service to private contractors “in an effort to ease pressure on NHS clinics while dealing with doctors’ insistence that a separate service is needed to help patients to end their own lives.”
If this was ever considered I understand it is not part of any current plan. So would private provision be banned? I’m told not, because the bill’s supporters feel “it would be unfair and unworkable to expect somebody who has always gone private to have to go into the NHS for this particular service alone.” But the amendment wouldn’t allow private companies to make money out of assisted dying, although they will be able to make “a reasonable charge”. What is considered “reasonable” we don’t know, as the amendment is still being written.
