NHS services could face cuts to cover the cost of carrying out assisted deaths, the Health Secretary has warned.
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.
You can guess, can’t you? Bully a few more of those whoi wouldf cost £50k in treatment costs to take the cheaper option.
Anyone who does not think this will happen is a fool.
It was always a way to reduce the waiting lists. Like a fool, I didn’t think it would be yet another excuse to ask for more money. The really sinister bit is when Nigel or Richard Tice gets a “really serious” ingrowing toenail…
I don’t like the plan but at least it must be a netsaving for the NHS. There will, obviously, be a waiting list but if you go private you can jump the queue.
Must admit I admire their gall. They save money by killing off those who’d cost a lot to treat. And then demand more money to pay for it!!
How in buggery does it cost £15000 to kill someone? I don’t recall Harold Shipman bankrupting himself.
Admin.
WTF’s the NHS involved in assisted dying anyway? Assisted dying is a competing service.
I thought killing people was already the NHS’s core function. It certainly isn’t curing them.
@Bloke in Wales
NHS core function is to benefit NHS staff to the maximum extent. Killing patients is merely a beneficial side effect to that main task.
1 billion divided by 15,000 per execution divided by ten years is roughly six thousand deaths a year. As a percentage of sixty million that sounds like a reasonable number of people living in extreme pain while suffering from a terminal disease.
If it’s possible to go to the chemist and get a pill to kill an unborn baby, without any checks, I can’t see why the same shouldn’t be allowed for anyone who wants to top themselves, provided that the pill is taken on the spot in front of the registered pharmacist, and not taken away to dispose of an disliked person like a boss or spouse.
Well they are useless eaters, aren’t they? After all, Labour is still a socialist party.
They should make people pay for their own suicide, or at least means test it. Why should the rest of us pay for someone to top themselves when they’ve got more than enough to pay for it themselves? Plus it would act as a break on the avaricious relatives – if the assisted suicide is going to cost £15k of their inheritance they might think twice about pressuring Granny to top herself.
In fact that might be the way to solve the pressure from relatives problem – say it’s going to cost you £50k, if you’ve got that in assets you have to pay yourself. If less than £50k the State takes whatever you have and pays for the rest, minus the cost of a basic funeral. Its no skin off the nose of the prospective suicidee, they’re going to be dead, so what does it matter to them if it costs them all their savings or part of their house? Whereas the prospective pressurers face losing all or some of the ill gotten gains. Win/win I’d say, in the circumstances (obviously I’m against the whole idea, but always try to make the best of a bad job etc).
Huh? The “cheaper option” is to simply not treat them. (i.e. extend the waiting lists.)
You can also say the treatment is ‘too expensive’, use cheaper treatments that don’t actually work, contract out services to the homeopaths and ethnic crystal healing people, introduce AI doctors to give people bad advice on self-treatment, and so on. Not treating people is easy. Not treating people while making it look as if you are treating them is a little harder, but not beyond the bounds of human ingenuity.
Killing them legally is inevitably going to involve lawyers, and the words “lawyer” and “cheaper option” do not belong in the same sentence.
There’s rather more of an argument to say it might be to reduce waiting list statistics. They look bad, politically. Goodhart’s law, and all that. But again, there are far easier and cheaper ways of fudging the statistics than killing off the patients. And it’s not as if people care that much about waiting lists. The NHS staff certainly have no reason to. So long as they get paid, who cares? The management get set targets, but if they’re impossible targets that nobody else can hit either, there’s no point in sacking them and putting another failure in their place. And the politicians have the skin of a rhinoceros when it comes to bad news about their incompetence.
I agree it’s a mistake giving the job to the NHS. Besides any questions over their general competence, efficiency, and possible conflicts of interest, I think the private sector would be far better at it. It’s not a problem that requires much medical expertise – sufficient to reliably confirm death, and prevent suffering if something goes wrong. It probably requires a lot more legal expertise though, to confirm consent. Perhaps some sort of partnership between the lawyers and funeral parlours. Or lawyers and ‘extreme sports’ providers. Or lawyers and luxury spas. Make it enjoyable. Make it expensive. And make it none of the government’s business.
Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
National Death Service has a certain ring to it, don’t you think? It could use the various temporary bits and bobs assembled by Boris for the Great Covid Fiasco.
Fifteen grand?!
I’ve a cheaper suggestion. Auction the rights to kill.
For every ten the NHS nominates, you get to nominate one yourself.
You mean:
1. Bleeping phones to tell you if you’ve been in proximity to a living person;
2. Mass testing to see if people are alive;
3. lethal jabs if the results are positive;
4. mask-wearing so no-one can see facial expressions, what’s going on, or identify anyone;
5. Nightingale Hospitals in which to do all this.
Good scheme. We just need Dildo Harding to run it.
@ Jim
I can foresee a very slow-moving queue of people lining up to jump off Beachy Head besieged by NIMBYs in their mink coats with placards saying “Don’t do it here! Do it elsewhere”
Betcha Waitrose could prepare a ‘special meal’ for ten pounds.
“Here, eat this while you wait for your appointment.”
Perhaps the execution will involve great theatrics. Special appearance by the Spice Girl of your choice.
At least the Germans had the decency to kill the people before burning them.
@ Gamecock
A “Spice Girl” for £15k?!?
A party rate for a hundred of you, perhaps.
Grist – The really sinister bit is when Nigel or Richard Tice gets a “really serious” ingrowing toenail…
Fuck Tice. He voted for this, knowing full well what the NHS is like.
Btw if there’s “no money” for this, why not just… not… give the NHS money to kill its patients? Or is that too clever for these rosette wearing retards?
“Hello, is that the NHS? My GP says I’ve only 6 months to live, so I’d like you to kill me.”
“Of course, sir, but I must warn you that there’s an 18 month waiting list for that service.”
Have they lost the recipe for Zyklon B?
HCN
Strongly getting the feeling the whole palaver about having a panel of retired barrister, psychiatrist, palliative care consultant, Macmillan nurse, Lord mayor of London, archbishop, medium, NHS trust chief executive and the Queen Mum review every application over a 3 month period is an excuse to bring in a watered-down “we’ve listened, more practical” variant when The Other Place says no.
@Jim – “They should make people pay for their own suicide…”
Firstly, note that the article is quoting an opponent of assisted dying, who is likely to be just looking for grounds to criticise it, even if they are unlikely to apply in reality.
Then note that there is nothing preventing people from paying except laws which say they can’t, so for from needing to make them pay, all you need to do is permit them to pay, and this new law is at least a step in that direction if it does not go all the way.
“Hello, is that the NHS? My GP says I’ve only 6 months to live, so I’d like you to kill me.”
“Of course, sir, but I must warn you that there’s an 18 month waiting list for that service.”
Thank you, Chris!!
It can’t possibly be morescpensive for the NHS to kill a patient quickly than kill them slowly.
As ever, the price is less than 10% the actual thing, 90% admin, DEI etc.
BREAKING NEWS:
NHS endorses smoking. It will sharply reduce long term health care costs.
Damn. Next thing you know, Brits will just kill themselves.
Wait . . . maybe this is a trick to actually REDUCE suicides. Thousands will be waiting for years for the government to ‘assist.’ They put the ‘ass’ in assist.
@Gamecock – “maybe this is a trick to actually REDUCE suicides”
It may well have that effect in some cases. If people free reassured that they’l be able to get assistance when they need it, they may refrain from killing themselves as insurance against leaving it too late.