Key takeaways
Healthcare involvement in assisted dying is legally complex
Helping with travel may be viewed as criminal assistance.
Police notification depends on circumstances
If assistance is suspected, providers should inform authorities.
Coroner’s role begins after death
Jurisdiction applies only once the body is repatriated.
Assisted dying abroad
Should healthcare providers notify the police and/or the coroner?
As we have increasingly seen, healthcare providers may become aware that a patient is considering travelling abroad for the purpose of obtaining assistance to end their own life. Dignitas is a high-profile example of this.
In this situation, what should a healthcare provider do in terms of notifying the coroner or the police? This article considers the legal aspects of this situation; however, it is essential that patient-centred care, support and advice should be balanced from a clinical perspective.
Summary of the law
Though there are expected changes to the law with the debate around the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the current law still stands and needs to be complied with whilst tending to patients across the UK. The following are key things to keep in mind at all times until any new legislation is passed:
It is currently an offence in English law to assist someone to die by suicide.
It is not an offence for a person to take their own life.
Assisting a person to travel abroad to take their own life is therefore likely a criminal offence.
A person travelling abroad to take their own life without assistance from others would not be committing a criminal offence.
Before death
If a healthcare provider becomes aware that a patient is intending the travel abroad to take their own life and the provider knows that the patient is acting wholly on their own behalf, no criminal offence has been committed and there would be no reason to notify the police. If there is any doubt about whether the person has been assisted, then consideration will need to be given on a case-by-case basis.
If a healthcare provider becomes aware that a patient is intending to travel abroad to take their own life and that others are assisting them in this, then the provider should notify the police as this is a potential criminal offence.
The coroner does not have jurisdiction whilst a person is alive – their jurisdiction only starts once there is a dead body in their area. Therefore, the Coroner would not need to be notified about a living patient intending to go abroad.
After death
If a person has travelled abroad to take their own life and presuming that the body has been returned to England/Wales, then the coroner is likely to have been informed of this in the course of the body being repatriated back to England and Wales.
However, for a “belts and braces” approach, the healthcare provider should consider notifying the coroner separately. Be aware - there may be some complexity in which coroner has jurisdiction, but if the healthcare provider does their best to identify the most appropriate coroner to notify, internal coronial procedures should do the rest.
If the healthcare provider has become aware, or suspects, that others may have assisted the patient to go abroad for this, they should notify the police and the coroner. The police and coroner will then decide what investigations to do next.
