Improving Britain’s palliative care services should be the priority

SIR – As the debate about assisted dying continues (Letters, December 27), it is worth considering the state of palliative care in Britain.

This can allow people to die in a dignified way, with “hospice at home” services, for example, in addition to support and respite for family members. Yet the bulk of hospice funding comes from charity and donations. Many hospices are running financial deficits. In some cases, legacy income is being held up because of probate delays.

Addressing such issues would help to improve the provision of these crucial services.

Tony Moss

Ashington, Northumberland

SIR – My late wife spent her final few days in the care of a local hospice during the height of the Covid pandemic.

The staff were able to manage her pain and provide her with dignity in those last moments, despite the restrictions at the time. I shall be forever grateful for their care, which they provide with limited public funding.

John Mclaren

Farnham, Surrey

SIR – One point currently missing from the debate about assisted dying is that it is not just the terminally ill who want to choose the manner and timing of their deaths.

My mother-in-law, an energetic and independent woman, lived on her own for 52 years. At the age of 95, with failing eyesight and the onset of dementia, she could no longer cope alone and moved into a residential home.

Three years later, confined to a wheelchair, almost blind, unable to speak and with the dementia well established, she did still, cruelly, have some awareness. She died on Tuesday.

The thought of living my final years like that fills me with terror. It would be comforting to know that I could avoid doing so legally and at the time of my choosing.

Lynn Billings

Hertford

SIR – Legalising assisted dying would be likely to have serious unintended consequences. Any new law should therefore be open to modification and repeal. This is why talk of a private members’ Bill helped through the Commons and Lords by the Government – as happened with David Steel’s abortion Bill – is misguided. For when a government regards a matter as one of conscience, it will not use its parliamentary time to facilitate further change once the initial reform is achieved in this way. All backbench attempts at modification can then be “talked out” by opponents.

If this change is to be made, it must be done by government legislation and with a commitment to a review within a short period – three years, say.

Charles Simon

Leicester