LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) – Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the debate over legalising assisted dying should wait until the country’s palliative care and adult social care systems have been fixed.
Last year elected lawmakers voted in favour of changing the law in England and Wales to allow assisted dying in some circumstances, but the bill failed in the upper chamber.
While supporters of the law change say it is about the right to choose, some critics of the legislation say that vulnerable people could feel pressured to end their lives, when palliative care and social care after often underfunded.
While the issue is set to return to be debated again in the new parliamentary session, Burnham, who became prime minister last week and who has made fixing adult social care a priority, said the debate should only happen once the right care structures were in place.
“I think there’s something that needs to happen first, and that’s the fixing of the funding of palliative care and social care,” Burnham, who is Catholic, said when asked his position on assisted dying.
“It is very challenging to introduce that wider debate in a context of people not receiving that care and having the peace of mind about that care.”
Under the legislation debated last year, mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less left to live would have had the right to choose to end their lives with medical help.
(Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Kate Holton)
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