Passing the assisted dying Bill could spark an NHS exodus as objecting doctors would have no legal security against being sacked, ministers have been warned.
GPs who refuse to help end a life would ‘receive no protection’ from being dismissed by the health service, according to the opinion of a leading human rights barrister.
The legal analysis from Aiden O’Neill KC highlights the lack of real conscience protections for doctors, nurses, and organisations such as hospices and care homes in the assisted dying Bill.
Mr O’Neill represented the women in April’s landmark Supreme Court gender case.
He raised concerns that if the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is passed in its current form, it may undermine the state’s duties to elderly, disabled and mentally ill people under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Mr O’Neill wrote: ‘General practitioners who refuse or decline to participate in the assisted suicide procedures which the Bill would propose to legalise, would receive no protection against being subject to detriment or dismissal by NHS bodies.’
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, the architect of the legislation, has said that amendments to the Bill mean medical professionals will be under no obligation to participate in the assisted dying process.
She has proposed amending the Employment Rights Act 1996 so that NHS staff would be at no detriment for opting out. But Mr O’Neill pointed out that as GPs are not classed as NHS ‘workers’, previous case law shows they would not be protected from dismissal.
He adds that GPs would often be the first port of call for somebody seeking an assisted death, so if they object they would still be required to direct people to further information on how to end their life.
He also warns the Scottish assisted dying Bill contains even fewer protections for doctors and nurses and the Scottish Parliament lacks the ‘legislative competence’ to implement them.
The assisted-dying lobby has some famous backers including Dame Esther Rantzen and her daughter Rebecca Wilcox.
But Michael Robinson, from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children which commissioned the analysis, said: ‘Thousands of doctors and nurses would be put in an invidious position to engage in an action they believe is fundamentally against either their religious or moral beliefs or violates long-held medical ethics that they should “do no harm”.’
Mr Robinson added: ‘The duty of the Lords is clear, fix the bill if possible, and if that is not possible, they must reject it unequivocally, because getting it wrong will put the lives of vulnerable people at risk and will lead to an exodus of medical staff from a sector that is already on its knees.’
It comes as members of the House of Lords continued line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill for the second of at least four committee sessions yesterday.
If it becomes law, it will allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and an ‘expert panel’.
