GPs will be consulted on assisted dying laws to establish RCGP position

The RCGP will consult members to establish a position on assisted dying following a new bill’s progress in Parliament. 

Over the weekend, the RCGP council voted in favour of mandating the college to ‘undertake a new all-member survey’ to inform a future decision on its ‘principle stance on the legalisation of assisted dying’. 

This meant council members voted against a motion which would move the college ‘to a position of neither opposing nor supporting’ a change to the law. 

Their current position – adopted in 2020 – is to oppose any change in the law on assisted dying, with an agreement not to review its position until 2025 ‘unless there were significant societal developments of the issue’.

The upcoming consultation with GPs will ‘likely report at some point next year’, according to the college, and it will remain in opposition to any change to the law until the review process concludes.

This discussion directly followed news on Friday that MPs had voted to back the assisted dying bill, which if passed would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales to end their lives. 

An hours-long debate in the Commons before the vote covered issues such as the role and expertise of doctors, concerns about potential coercion, and a perceived lack of adequate safeguards. 

The proposed legislation, which was introduced as a private members bill by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, requires the participation of two doctors who assess terminally ill adults and sign off on the decision.

On Saturday, RCGP council members voted on two options:

• to agree to move to a position of neither opposing nor supporting a change in the law to legalise assisted dying; or
• to mandate the College to undertake a new all-member survey to inform a future UK Council decision on the College’s in principle stance on the legalisation of assisted dying.

The second option received the most support, with 61% of members voting in favour of conducting a member survey.

In response to the bill’s progress in Parliament, the BMA has reiterated its ‘neutral’ position on the issue of assisted dying, but has emphasised the need for ‘absolute freedom of choice for doctors as to whether they participate or not’.

Meanwhile, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) also has a ‘neutral position’ on assisted dying, which was adopted in 2019 following a member survey. 

However, the RCP has now said it will consider how it will engage with the parliamentary process regarding ‘issues around implementation’.

RCGP chair Professor Kamila Hawthorne said the issue of assisted dying for terminally ill people is ‘one of the most contentious and sensitive issues society is grappling with’, and that GPs ‘have widely differing views about’ it.

She said the college’s council ‘felt’ that any move to take a new position on assisted dying ‘must be informed by a consultation with members’. 

Professor Hawthorne continued: ‘However, regardless of the outcome of this consultation, and recognising yesterday’s vote in Parliament, the College will have a clear role in advocating for our members, regardless of their views on assisted dying, as to how potential changes in the law will impact on their daily practice and the care they deliver for patients. 

‘We will also continue to push to ensure palliative and end of life care, much of which is delivered by GPs and our teams, is the best it possibly can be.’

She said it is ‘imperative that no GP feels as though they have to participate’ and that ‘any assisted dying service is provided as a separate specialised service and not as a part of core general practice’.

‘It’s also crucial that resources are not diverted from general practice – or palliative care services – in order to deliver them,’ the RCGP chair added.