Assisted dying is not a priority for the public, who want the government to cut NHS waiting lists instead, according to a new poll ahead of a crucial vote on the Bill.
Just one in eight people think the Government should prioritise legalising assisted dying compared to 70 per cent who want to see waiting times slashed, the survey of 2,090 Britons found.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill comes before the Lords for its first debate among peers on Friday after MPs backed legalisation in an historic vote in June.
The first Lords vote on the Bill is expected to take place on the following Friday, September 19, before Peers will be given the chance to put forward changes, with a final vote to come later.
The survey by pollster Whitestone Insight found that 63 per cent of people agreed with comments by Health Secretary Wes Streeting that money spent on implementing assisted dying could be put to better use.
The public would prefer the Government to improve cancer care, fund mental health services, provide assistance for disabled people and children with special educational needs, and fund improved palliative care, the poll found.
Asked which was their priority out of 11 different areas, legalising assisted dying was the least favoured option by those polled with just 13 per cent picking it as their top priority.
By contrast, 70 per cent of Britons said they wanted the Government to reduce waiting lists, 54 per cent to ensure adequate ambulance services, and 44 per cent to improve cancer care.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of anti-assisted dying group of Care Not Killing, which commissioned the poll, said it showed that ‘patients neither want nor need assisted dying, instead they want the government to fix our broken NHS’.
He said: ‘As this dangerous Bill reaches the House of Lords, it is vital peers are given the time they need to scrutinise this legislation…
‘In short, they need to significantly toughen up the weak safeguards that fail to protect the vulnerable and elderly, fail to protect disabled people, especially those with hidden disabilities like autism, and, before any change commences, ensure that there is universal access to the best quality palliative care.’
Dr Gordon Macdonald added: ‘If these problems can’t be corrected, then peers must ignore pressure from campaigners driven by an extreme ideology and vote down the draft legislation.’
It comes as a group of more than 50 leading psychiatrists have written to Peers ahead of the assisted dying Bill vote to express their ‘profound concern’ about the legislation.
The letter states that legalising assisted suicide would create a ‘seismic shift in the established role of the psychiatrist from the prevention of suicide to assisting suicide, undermining our ethical responsibilities and the trust placed in us by patients and society’.
