UK Assisted dying bill ‘is being rushed’

This article was published in The Times on February 4, 2025.

We are alarmed at the haste of the committee considering the bill for assisted dying. Three days of oral evidence seems insufficient to consider such a huge question as doctor-assisted suicide. We hope there will be much more consideration of the written evidence in the weeks to come.

A law on doctor-assisted suicide will undermine the daily efforts of psychiatrists across the United Kingdom to prevent suicide. Those who have suicidal thoughts at any time in life may be vulnerable to pressures to take their own life by the introduction of doctor-assisted suicide. Vulnerability can arise owing to external factors such as lack of decent palliative or social care; overt coercion or undue influence; and personal losses including bereavement, poor housing or financial hardship. Internal factors may include major depressive disorder, a sense of burdensomeness, loneliness and social isolation. Understanding and responding to these vulnerabilities is at the centre of suicide prevention.

The initial reluctance of the committee to see the need to call the Royal College of Psychiatrists to give evidence is in itself shocking and betrays a lacking understanding of the job that we do in understanding suicide and its prevention. This bill should be overwhelmingly rejected.

Prof Jonathan Cavanagh, consultant neuropsychiatrist, Glasgow; Prof Julian Hughes, professor of old age psychiatry, Bristol; Prof Alan Thomas, professor of old age psychiatry, Newcastle; Dr Mark Agius, retired associate specialist in psychiatry, Bedfordshire; Dr Agnes Ayton, consultant psychiatrist in eating disorders, Oxford; Dr Jenny Bryden, consultant psychiatrist in rehabilitation, Scottish Borders; Dr Elizabeth Corcoran, psychiatrist, East Sussex; Dr Larry Culliford, retired psychiatrist, South East Region; Dr Sebastian Desando, specialty registrar in forensic psychiatry, West Midlands; Dr Stefan Gleeson, consultant psychiatrist, Winchester; Dr Fiona Harrison, tribunal psychiatrist, South West; Dr Mirette Habib, consultant psychiatrist, London; Dr Mark S Komrad, faculty of psychiatry, Maryland, USA; Dr Vicki Ibbett, trainee psychiatrist, West Midlands; Dr Jessica Kirker, retired psychiatrist & psychoanalyst, London; Dr Mark Parry, consultant psychiatrist, Reading; Dr Sunil Raheja, consultant psychiatrist, London; Dr Hannah Reynolds, higher trainee, West Midlands; Dr Josie Rimmer, consultant psychiatrist, Bristol; Dr Jonathan Rogers, clinical lecturer in general adult psychiatry, London; Dr Musa Sami, consultant psychiatrist, Nottingham; Dr Carlo Thomas, consultant forensic psychiatrist, Nottinghamshire; Dr Andrea Tocca, consultant psychiatrist, Uxbridge; Dr Adrian Treloar, consultant in old age psychiatry, Bromley.