A woman with multiple sclerosis has lost her Appeal Court case to clarify the law on assisted suicide. Debbie Purdy, 45, from Bradford, is considering going to a Swiss clinic to end her life, but fears her husband may be charged on his return to the UK. She wanted clarification of where her husband, Omar Puente would stand legally if he helped her in any way. But Ms Purdy said after the ruling: "I feel that I have won my argument, despite having lost the appeal."
There has been growing concern in recent years about whether current law is adequate to deal with misuse of the internet to promote suicide and suicide methods. The Government share the concerns that have been expressed about such misuse, in particular about suicide websites and the influence they may have over vulnerable people, especially young people.
Comprehensive guidance for doctors on care at the end of life, including difficult decisions on when to provide, withhold, or withdraw life prolonging treatment, will go out for consultation from the UK’s General Medical Council in March. The draft guidance was approved by the council at its February meeting, subject to minor amendments. The consultation will be launched in the week beginning 23 March and will end in July. The new advice takes account of the Mental Capacity Act 2005; government strategies on end of life care in England and Scotland; GMC guidance in 2007 on consent; recent research; and a Court of Appeal judgment on a legal challenge to the GMC’s 2002 guidance Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Treatments (Burke).
There is evidence from outside the UK to show that physicians’ religious beliefs influence their decision making at the end of life. This UK study explores the belief system of consultants, nurse key workers & specialist registrars & their attitudes to decisions which commonly must be taken when caring for individuals who are dying. Results showed that consultants’ religion & belief systems differed from those of nurses & the population they served. Consultants & nurses had statistically significant differences in their attitudes to common end of life decisions with consultants more likely to continue hydration & not withdraw treatment. Nurses were more sympathetic to the idea of PAS for unbearable suffering. This study shows the variability in belief system and attitudes to end of life decision making both within and between clinical groups. The personal belief system of consultants was not shown to affect their overall attitudes to withdrawing life-sustaining treatment or PAS.
Parents battling to keep their seriously ill baby alive have failed to overturn a ruling allowing him to die. The nine-month-old boy has a rare metabolic disorder and has suffered brain damage and respiratory failure. The couple had appealed against a judge's ruling on Thursday that it was in the boy's best interests to withdraw his "life sustaining treatment". The High Court ruling gives doctors at an unnamed NHS trust powers to turn off the ventilator keeping "baby OT" alive.
The GMC is consulting on new draft guidance, End of life treatment and care: Good practice in decision-making. The new guidance updates and builds on our existing publication Withholding and withdrawing life-prolonging treatments (2002) which clarified what we regarded as acceptable practice in this difficult area of end of life care. Since it was published, there have been significant changes in legislation, case law, public policy and the understanding of the effects of treatments, all of which affect the framework within which end of life care is provided. The GMC has also produced new guidance on Consent: patients and doctors making decisions together (2008) which sets out the broad principles of good decision-making which apply across the range of situations that doctors face, including end of life care. It was agreed that the Withholding and withdrawing guidance should be reviewed and updated to take account of these developments.
An Australian doctor stopped at Heathrow Airport when he arrived to hold workshops on euthanasia has been granted leave to stay in UK. Philip Nitschke was interviewed under the Immigration and Asylum Act after arriving from Australia on Saturday. Dr Nitschke plans to hold a workshop in Bournemouth, Dorset, on Tuesday to talk about assisted suicide.
Twenty-five years ago it was common practice to bring about the deaths of some children with learning disabilities or physical impairments. This paper considers a small number of landmark cases in the early 1980s that confronted this practice. These cases illustrate a process by which external forces (social, philosophical, political, and professional) moved through the legal system to effect a profound change outside that system – primarily in the (then) largely closed domain of medical conduct/practice. These cases are considered from a socio-legal perspective. In particular, the paper analyses the reasons why they surfaced at that time, the social and political contexts that shaped the judgments, and their legacy.
Parliamentarians will make a new attempt next month to amend the law to give protection from prosecution to friends and family members who help a terminally ill person travel outside the United Kingdom for assisted suicide.
An act by an individual ("D") is not to be treated as capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another adult ("T") if— (a) the act is done solely or principally for the purpose of enabling or assisting T to travel to a country or territory in which assisted dying is lawful;
Aims: These guidance notes have been produced to help healthcare workers and organisations to achieve uniformly high standards in making DNAR decisions and in ensuring that all relevant aspects of these decisions are recorded and communicated to others effectively. They are not intended to be a comprehensive guide to decisions about cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Intended audience: Healthcare professionals. Publication history information: Published May 2009. Access: Available to the general public.
The aim of this guideline is to inform health and social care professionals on how best to manage advance care planning (ACP) in clinical practice. At the core of current health and social care are efforts to maximise individuals’ autonomy, promote patient-centred care, offer choice and the right to decide one’s own treatment or care. This can be difficult to achieve when an individual has lost capacity – the ability to make their own, informed decision. ACP is one method of enhancing autonomy, not only where an individual has lost capacity, but also by focussing discussion on the individual’s values and preferences throughout the time they are in contact with health or social care professionals. Whilst ACP has been used for some time in North America, there has been relatively little experience in the use of ACP in the UK. This set of concise evidence-based guidelines has therefore been prepared to guide practitioners.
This site explains how the law now allows people to make decisions to refuse treatments including those that sustain life. Many people want to achieve a natural and dignified death, this is one way to help achieve it. This is a free and non-profit NHS website. We suggest people enter the site using the relevent menu section (above). Many people benefit from looking at both sections.
Aims: This guidance relating to the management of the birth of extremely preterm babies (at less than 26 weeks of gestation) is aimed at both parents and healthcare professionals. It addresses communication before delivery, management recommendations, neonatal resuscitation and ethical considerations. Intended audience: Obstetricians, healthcare professionals working in maternity settings, parents of preterm babies. Publication history information: Published online 06 October 2008.
Bridget Kathleen Gilderdale, 54, known as Kay, was arrested at her home in Stonegate, near Heathfield, East Sussex, following the death of her daughter Lynn, 31, who suffered from ME, on 4 December last year. She pleaded guilty to the charge during a brief hearing at Lewes Crown Court today, but denied a charge of attempted murder and one of aiding and abetting attempted suicide. She is alleged to have committed the offences against her daughter, who was struck down with ME at the age of 14, between 2 December and 5 December.
A "considered" and "objective" debate is needed on assisted suicide, the head of the Royal College of Nursing says. It comes after the RCN, which has 400,000 members, shifted its stance on the matter to be neutral.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has dropped its opposition to the concept of helping patients to commit suicide. The college has now adopted a neutral stance, neither supporting nor opposing a change in the law.