NHS Could Face Cuts to Fund Assisted Suicide, Warns Streeting
NHS services could face cuts to cover the cost of carrying out assisted suicides as the up to half a billion pounds the new suicide service is estimated to require will have to come from existing budgets, the Health Secretary has warned. The Telegraph has more.
Under the Bill passed on Friday, the NHS will be expected to carry out the assisted dying procedures. Analysis suggests that implementation of assisted dying may cost the health service close to half a billion pounds within a decade, with each death costing the taxpayer more than £15,000.
Assisted dying is set to be legalised in England and Wales after a historic vote saw it voted through by a majority of 23 MPs.
However, Wes Streeting – who voted against the Bill – is understood to be deeply concerned about the impact it might have on an overstretched NHS.
Speaking ahead of the vote, he warned: “There isn’t money allocated to set up the service in the Bill”, while stressing that the Government would respect the decision of the House.
Previously, he had warned there would be “choices and trade-offs” to make, saying “any new service comes at the expense of other competing pressures and priorities”.
Last week, the Health Secretary said the NHS was “in a fight for its life” as he described his mission to turn the service around.
A number of MPs who opposed the Bill have raised concerns that assisted dying could take resources away from patients.
On Tuesday, Dame Siobhain McDonagh, a Labour MP who voted against the legislation, said it could become “the Trojan horse that breaks the NHS“, saying it would “rob our stretched NHS of much-needed resources”.
The impact assessment of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill estimates that up to 28,317 people will die by state assisted suicide within the first 10 years of rollout.
This rises from 647 in year one to more than 4,500 by 2038, and could mean costs of £429 million for the NHS over the decade.
Still, it’s not all bad. Once it’s set up, state-assisted suicide will, by 2038, save the NHS up to £71.5 million a year on end-of-life care, because of the savings from not providing costly hospital care for cancer. So that’s nice.
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Is killing somebody healthcare? Why should the NHS be shouldered with the cost?
Privatise murder, I like it.
Surely Serco could be invited to “tender” for the contract.
I would think that it would pay for itself easily and then some. Just think of the amount of medical care that’s going to be saved each time someone choses to end it early.
I’d bet that’s the real purpose of the bill, not that anyone would want to admit it.
The amount of medical care (monies?) that is going to be saved may translate into job losses for health care workers/”professionals”. Oh dear.
Or will the national health quango be rebranded:
NES (National Euthanasia Service)
The radical arm of the No Hope Service?
Here’s a fix;
Fire all the fat-arse middle aged women working in meaningless HR roles.
Fire all the DEI support ‘officers’ plotting activism on Reddit.
Fire all the busy-bodies hand wringing over political correctness.
That should free up some money eh? Maybe then the NHS can afford to pay patient facing staff.
Bunch of wankers.
Couldn’t agree more or express myself better.
It’s not ‘killing people’. People are ASKING to be relieved of a long drawn out death lacking the dignity they had in life. There is a discussion to be had about coercion, but only people with less than 6 months to live who request help, are in line for this.
You make it sound like death squads going out on the streets.
Exactly. The righteous indignation is off the charts.🙄 That’s the DS echo chamber for you, though.
But I wonder how many wouldn’t say a peep if the vet told them it’s best to put their beloved dog or cat down once it got old, infirm and incontinent or had a terminal cancer diagnosis and was suffering. Because that would be a *merciful* death, remember. Yes, we show more mercy to suffering animals than to humans, who just have to endure a long, protracted, painful and undignified end.
Personally, I think they should go for a hattrick, whilst there seems to be a theme, and bring back the death penalty. After all, how can it now be deemed okay to end the lives of terminally ill people with <6 months on the clock but not end the lives of evil people who deserve to die, such as the Southport mass child-killer? This cannot possibly be justified now, as far as I’m concerned. And remember, a woman can kill her own 39 week old baby just before birth and not face charges so again, where is the rationale now in opposing reinstating capital punishment?
If a lifer claims ‘depression’ will they too be able to avail themselves of this assistance, I wonder?
You know, just going back to this horrendous abortion legislation, it actually makes even more of a mockery of the whole Lucy Letby case. A woman can kill her own viable baby ( supposedly before it’s born, hence ‘abortion’, but if she’s at home doing a D.I.Y job and unattended then she could just give birth to it then throttle the baby, nobody would know, presumably ) and not be prosecuted but a nurse can get sent down for multiple life sentences for allegedly killing other people’s premature babies. Surely killing viable babies should be a criminal offence no matter who does the killing and irrespective of if the babies have left the birth canal or not.
See Canada foe details of how this will play out.
Canada will allow euthanasia for mental illness beginning in March, 2027. A report by the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD) also called for an expansion of euthanasia to include children (mature minors).
One day the terminally ill, the next day children.
https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-international-disability-rights.html
Whatever the rights and wrongs (personally I am broadly in favour of the bill) surely the projected £15,000 cost is saved many times over when ongoing treatment costs are not needed anymore.
Of course. I never imagined the bill had any other purpose than dealing with the mushrooming cost of the NHS in a population that is only going to get older and older and require ever greater amounts of medical care.
Anyone know what, substantially, is the difference between this type of end of life care and that given to our pets?
A home visit for a dog costs £250, are the drugs fundamentally so different that administering them will cost 60x as much? Perhaps it’s the admin costs?
“I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them.[4] Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.” (Quote from the classical Hippocratic oath, according to Wikipedia)
How far have we fallen!
The sky could fall, leaving bits of blue and white littering the ground.
The economy could collapse.
Demons could rise from cracks in the hospital car park.
Question: did any of the predictions about the consequences of abortion or organ transplants or blood transfusions come to pass?
Or is Wes Streeting just another purveyor of fear rhetoric to help his opinion along?
The numbers predicted for those availing themselves of this ‘service’ are wildly out of synch with real world experience. In Canada in 2016, on rollout, 1,000 folk topped themselves. In 2023, the figure was just over 15,000. (Cumulative total over the period, 60,000). That’s with a population of 40m. So 69m population in UK (and rising) will have a predicted 28,317 deaths over the first decade? Yeah, pull the other one.
How many years before the service goes full Brave New World and becomes compulsory?
10 years? 20?
I reckon over that period of time they could even get the population to embrace it and not even have to mandate it. I reckon 20 years is enough to brainwash a population into pretty much anything especially if they can shame you into it like they did with the covid jabs telling you you’re selfish and acting against society if you don’t play along.
That was Logan’s Run, not Brave New World, surely?
Both stories featured totalitarian acceptance of “your scheduled end”.
Also Soylent Green
The NHS in a fight for its life? Perhaps the NHS should be the first candidate for assisted dying.
Because of human rights laws this will be the thin end of the wedge. A series of other hard cases will be used to argue that if they have the right to do this then why can’t I. This is the usual MO. We will quickly end up like Canada. The general pressure for people who think life is a burden will not be to recover, but to give up because it’s cheaper. It already is unlikely to work on its own terms, what serious interventions can the NHS actually do in 6 months? So they will be coming back for another adjustment in pretty short order .
How can killing someone be more expensive than keeping them alive?
Only in the NHS would a lethal injection be more expensive than 6 months of palliative care.
“Once it’s set up, state-assisted suicide will, by 2038, save the NHS up to £71.5 million a year on end-of-life care, because of the savings from not providing costly hospital care for cancer. So that’s nice.”
That’s the whole point of the legislation …. they don’t give a 4X about the individuals; it will effectively become euthanasia.
One of the big arguments against assisted suicide is that people will be “encouraged” towards it by TPTB because it’s far cheaper than the alternative palliative care. So I don’t really understand how it can also be set to bankrupt the NHS.
I’m very conflicted on this one. I would want to be able to end my own suffering if/when I end up with a terminal illness such as cancer; having seen family members die from such things it doesn’t seem to matter what is done, it is nearly always unpleasant and undignified at the end. But I only support it if it is strictly for terminal illnesses with a clear option of good palliative care as an alternative. Unfortunately I can completely imagine the scope widening to include many other issues.
Will’s last paragraph! I was having similar sarcastic thoughts along the same lines.
I really don’t trust this bill not be a slippery slope in getting rid of people indiscriminately!
PTSD – depression – drug addicts – drunks? It could happen!
presumably the argument is that if they kill off all the sick people the NHS wont need as much money anyway