Keir Starmer, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, is to clarify whether people should be prosecuted for aiding a suicide following a landmark ruling by the Law Lords last week. It had been assumed that this guidance would affect only cases in which friends or relatives helped people to die abroad, such as at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich. However, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Starmer said the “broad principles” of his new guidelines would apply equally to acts of assisted suicide planned and carried out at home.
A government source said: "Parliament is currently divided on this issue, but it may be that after Starmer produces his guidance, politicians will recognise that this is an ethical issue that cannot be left" to the Crown Prosecution Service alone.
More than 80% of NHS primary care trusts in England fail to offer the recommended three free cycles of IVF to infertile couples, an MP has claimed. The Department of Health says 30% of PCTs provide three cycles of the fertilisation treatment. But Tory MP Grant Shapps, who has contacted every PCT, says these figures are out of date. A "postcode lottery" operates, with rules on age, relationships and other children varying widely, he insists. In some cases women who would be deemed too old for treatment by one PCT would be seen as too young by another.
The director of public prosecutions (DPP) must spell out clearly his policy on prosecuting people in England and Wales who help friends or relatives go abroad for assisted suicide, the UK’s highest court has ruled. The unanimous judgment from five law lords is a victory for Debbie Purdy, who has primary progressive multiple sclerosis and wants her husband to help her travel to Switzerland—where assisted suicide is lawful—when she decides to die.
The government has announced a ban on patients paying for private transplant surgery using organs donated within the NHS. Ministers have accepted the recommendations of an independent report commissioned by the government after concerns that foreign patients were bypassing lengthy NHS waiting lists by paying up to £75 000 ({euro}90 000; $130 000) for a transplantation. Earlier this year it was revealed that the livers of 50 British NHS donors were transplanted into foreign patients over a two year period, with the bulk of the operations taking place in London at King’s College Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital.
But there is evidence that some clinicians may already be using continuous deep sedation (CDS), as a form of "slow euthanasia". Research suggests use of CDS in Britain is particularly high - accounting for about one in six of all deaths.
Lawyers seek clarification on role of UK doctors in assisted suicide: The UK Medical Protection Society says it will question MPs in the autumn on whether doctors may be prosecuted if they provide medical reports about a patient’s condition or fitness to travel knowing that this information will be passed to clinics such as Dignitas that help people end their life. They are also seeking clarification on whether doctors have a duty to report a patient’s intentions to the authorities.
Patients with rarer forms of cancer may have been denied potentially life-saving drugs due to a postcode lottery, campaigners said today. A study by the Rarer Cancers Forum found patients faced a postcode lottery when requesting drugs that had not been licensed for their condition, with many people being refused treatment.
Doctors should apologise and provide explanations to patients and their relatives when treatment goes wrong, according to guidance from the NHS Litigation Authority, the body which defends the NHS against legal claims for clinical negligence. The letter from (KCL MA MEL alumnus) Stephen Walker. the authority’s chief executive, replaces an earlier circular that warned NHS bodies to take care when providing explanations "so as to avoid future litigation risks."
A couple have spoken of their shock after an IVF clinic mix-up led to their last embryo being wrongly implanted into another patient. They were further angered when it emerged the other woman was given the morning-after pill. The couple from Bridgend won their case for damages after the mistake at Cardiff's University Hospital of Wales. Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust apologised "unreservedly" for the error and said it had improved checking procedures. The trust admitted gross failures in care and has also agreed to pay an undisclosed settlement to the couple.
A trainee teacher with primary refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma has launched a High Court action against her primary care trust, NHS Surrey, which has refused to pay for her treatment with an unlicensed drug. Philippa Bigham, aged 28, from Frimley, Surrey, has been given a prognosis of two years’ survival without a bone marrow transplantation. But her medical team at the Royal Free Hospital in London want her to have treatment with radiolabelled basiliximab, a monoclonal antibody conjugated with radioactive iodine and also known as CHT-25, before she has the transplantation. The primary care trust has refused to pay for the drug, which costs £3000 ({euro}3500; $4900) for a course of treatment. Basiliximab is licensed in the United Kingdom for use in renal transplant rejection but the radiolabelled version is not yet licensed.
A mother of a prominent ME sufferer and campaigner has admitted aiding and abetting the suicide of her daughter. Bridget Kathleen Gilderdale, 54, of Stonegate, near Heathfield, Sussex, pleaded guilty to the charge at Lewes Crown Court. But she denied a charge of attempted murder and one of aiding and abetting attempted suicide.
Bridget Kathleen Gilderdale, 54, known as Kay, was arrested at her home in Stonegate, near Heathfield, East Sussex, following the death of her daughter Lynn, 31, who suffered from ME, on 4 December last year. She pleaded guilty to the charge during a brief hearing at Lewes Crown Court today, but denied a charge of attempted murder and one of aiding and abetting attempted suicide. She is alleged to have committed the offences against her daughter, who was struck down with ME at the age of 14, between 2 December and 5 December.
A "considered" and "objective" debate is needed on assisted suicide, the head of the Royal College of Nursing says. It comes after the RCN, which has 400,000 members, shifted its stance on the matter to be neutral.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has dropped its opposition to the concept of helping patients to commit suicide. The college has now adopted a neutral stance, neither supporting nor opposing a change in the law.
A LESBIAN couple have won the right to IVF on the NHS after a legal tussle, ahead of laws that will put same-sex patients on an equal footing with heterosexuals. The couple, who remain anonymous, had to go through a legal fight to push the NHS to fund IVF because, at the moment, individual trusts decide whether they wish to pay for treatment for lesbians. The couple were initially refused IVF by their primary care trust because they were of the same sex. One of the women had polycystic ovarian syndrome, which disrupts ovulation, and is one of the most common causes of infertility. From October, clinics will no longer be able to block lesbians by referring to a child’s “need for a father”. Instead, same-sex couples will need to demonstrate only that they can offer “supportive parenting”.
It is three years since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority reviewed its guidelines for sperm, egg and embryo donation in the appropriately acronymed SEED report. But reproductive medicine has moved on so swiftly that Professor Lisa Jardine, who took over last April as the authority’s chairman, believes that it is time to return to the issue. In an interview with The Times she called for a fresh debate on two of the most controversial aspects of donation. First on her agenda is the question of when family members should be allowed to donate to one another. She is concerned about intergenerational donation, such as in two cases in 2007. In one, a Briton aged 72 provided sperm to his daughter-in-law, while in the other a Canadian, Melanie Boivin, froze eggs for her daughter, Flavie, 7, who has Turner syndrome and will become infertile.
Campaigner Debbie Purdy has called for an "open debate" on assisted suicide laws after her landmark court victory. Prosecutors are to clarify the law after Law Lords backed Ms Purdy's call for formal advice on the legal position of those who help a loved one to die.
The government says it will ban all private transplants of organs from dead donors in the UK. The move comes after media reports of overseas patients paying to get onto the waiting list for organs donated by British people. An independent report said organs were scarce and no one should be able to pay for transplants, to ensure NHS patients did not miss out. Surgeons said it should reassure people organs went to those in most need.