Assisted Dying: Legislation

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Earl has given us the “good intentions” speech. The slippery slope he outlined was paved with comforting phrases, but were they justified by facts? One of his phrases was “death clearly inevitable”; another was “certain to die within six months”. However, in a survey taken last October of 156 patients whose prognosis was death within 14 days, 12% lived longer. These patients had advanced, incurable cancer and were referred for palliative care services. Further research following that showed that 10% of MDs made inaccurate prognoses for two-week survival, and in a survey of 1,018 patients with advanced cancer, only 56.3% were able to be accurate with medical predictions. I think that the base of the case is not proven.