NHS services could face cuts to cover the cost of carrying out assisted suicides as the up to half a billion pounds the new suicide service is estimated to require will have to come from existing budgets, the Health Secretary has warned. The Telegraph has more.
Under the Bill passed on Friday, the NHS will be expected to carry out the assisted dying procedures. Analysis suggests that implementation of assisted dying may cost the health service close to half a billion pounds within a decade, with each death costing the taxpayer more than £15,000.
Assisted dying is set to be legalised in England and Wales after a historic vote saw it voted through by a majority of 23 MPs.
However, Wes Streeting – who voted against the Bill – is understood to be deeply concerned about the impact it might have on an overstretched NHS.
Speaking ahead of the vote, he warned: “There isn’t money allocated to set up the service in the Bill”, while stressing that the Government would respect the decision of the House.
Previously, he had warned there would be “choices and trade-offs” to make, saying “any new service comes at the expense of other competing pressures and priorities”.
Last week, the Health Secretary said the NHS was “in a fight for its life” as he described his mission to turn the service around.
A number of MPs who opposed the Bill have raised concerns that assisted dying could take resources away from patients.
On Tuesday, Dame Siobhain McDonagh, a Labour MP who voted against the legislation, said it could become “the Trojan horse that breaks the NHS“, saying it would “rob our stretched NHS of much-needed resources”.
The impact assessment of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill estimates that up to 28,317 people will die by state assisted suicide within the first 10 years of rollout.
This rises from 647 in year one to more than 4,500 by 2038, and could mean costs of £429 million for the NHS over the decade.
Still, it’s not all bad. Once it’s set up, state-assisted suicide will, by 2038, save the NHS up to £71.5 million a year on end-of-life care, because of the savings from not providing costly hospital care for cancer. So that’s nice.
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