{"id":762970,"date":"2026-09-07T14:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T14:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762970\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T14:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T14:58:09","slug":"assisted-dying-to-go-ahead-even-if-nhs-not-ready-tories-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762970\/","title":{"rendered":"Assisted dying to go ahead even if NHS not ready, Tories warn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assisted dying would come into force within four years of MPs passing it into law \u201cregardless of whether the NHS was ready\u201d, the shadow health secretary has warned.<\/p>\n

Damian Hinds used his first intervention since Kemi Badenoch appointed him last week to urge MPs not to support the legislation, which will return to the Commons on Friday.<\/p>\n

Writing in The Telegraph, he warns that an \u201cunprecedented\u201d clause in the bill would create a deadline to bring in assisted dying regardless of the NHS\u2019s \u201coperational readiness\u201d.<\/p>\n

The shadow health secretary said: \u201cFour years after Royal Assent, likely in 2031, the law would take effect regardless of whether the NHS was ready.<\/p>\n

\u2018Readiness would be irrelevant\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the necessary staff, training and safeguards were not in place, assisted dying<\/a> would become lawful. Clinical and operational readiness would be irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Hinds suggested that the legally imposed deadline could be used to \u201cjustify shortcuts\u201d in recruiting or training doctors for the job.<\/p>\n

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would allow adults in England and Wales with less than six months to live to seek medical assistance to end their lives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was introduced as a Private Member\u2019s Bill in 2024 after Sir Keir Starmer promised Dame Esther Rantzen, a campaigner for the law, that Labour would allow time for a vote on it.<\/p>\n

The original bill, introduced by Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP, was a vote of conscience, which means that MPs are not whipped to vote in a certain way to align with a party position.<\/p>\n

But the bill ran out of parliamentary time in the House of Lords<\/a>, where peers tabled hundreds of amendments to the legislation, as some argued the bill was fundamentally flawed.<\/p>\n

A near-identical version of the legislation was reintroduced by Lauren Edwards, a Labour MP, in June and if it passes again without changes, peers would ultimately be unable to block it.<\/p>\n

A swing of just 12 voters would change outcome<\/p>\n

Ms Leadbeater\u2019s bill passed with a majority of only 23 MPs, which means that just 12 MPs who voted for the bill would have to change their minds and vote against it for it not to pass again.<\/p>\n

Mr Hinds said: \u201cAs shadow health secretary, my duty is to hold the Government to account for how it protects patients, safeguards trust in the NHS and uses scarce resources responsibly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn each count, this Bill falls short. I will not support it, and \u2013 whatever their views on the principle of assisted dying \u2013 MPs should not force it into law unchanged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Tories are confident that four years will be enough time for the NHS to prepare.<\/p>\n

Lord Markham, a former Conservative health minister, said the implementation period \u201callows plenty of time\u201d for the NHS to prepare.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cOffering a relatively small number of terminally ill people some choice over the manner of their death is well within the capabilities of our NHS, whatever other challenges it may face.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government\u2019s own independent impact assessment makes this clear, as did the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Chris Whitty, in his evidence last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe four-year implementation period allows plenty of time to prepare for a change that is compassionate, easily affordable and long overdue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Hinds also raised concerns that the bill \u201cexplicitly allows ministers to alter the founding principles of the NHS\u201d.<\/p>\n

The assisted dying bill would give the health secretary the ability to amend the National Health Service Act 2006, which underpins the running of the NHS.<\/p>\n

They would have these powers to introduce voluntary assisted dying services on the NHS, but critics of the bill say that the wording of the clause is too broad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Assisted dying would come into force within four years of MPs passing it into law \u201cregardless of whether…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[43822,252025,102,2960,673,87607,50,200201,229,5438,56,225,54,55],"class_list":["post-762970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-assisted-dying","tag-damian-hinds","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-house-of-commons","tag-house-of-lords","tag-news","tag-nhs-national-health-service","tag-politics","tag-standard","tag-uk","tag-uk-news","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}