UK hospices face funding crisis as assisted dying bill sparks fears of coerced closures, threatening end-of-life care amid inadequate support.
Newsroom (02/10/2025, Gaudium Press ) A leading UK bioethics expert has warned that hospices could face existential threats if assisted dying is legalized, as funding pressures may force them to facilitate the practice or risk closure.
Dr. Pia Matthews, a senior lecturer in healthcare ethics at St. Mary’s University, London, told Catholic News Agency (CNA) on Oct. 1 that the legalization of assisted dying, expected to be debated in Parliament this November, could tie hospice funding to their willingness to offer assisted deaths. “There is a real risk that funding to a hospice will depend on whether the hospice engages in the practice of facilitating assisted deaths,” Matthews said. “This will put further pressure not only on staff but also on the survival of some hospices, which are already underfunded.”
The warning comes as a private member’s bill, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, introduced by MP Kim Leadbeater in November 2024, seeks to legalize assisted dying for terminally ill adults with less than six months to live. The bill, which passed the House of Commons, is now under scrutiny in the House of Lords, where peers voted on Sept. 19 to establish a select committee to examine its safety and implications. Under current law in England and Wales, assisting suicide carries a potential seven-year prison sentence.
Matthews cautioned that the ethos of assisted dying undermines the principles of hospice care, which prioritize solidarity, hope, and comprehensive end-of-life support. “Hospice care offers real choice at the end of life: choice about where to die, who will accompany the person, treatment and care options,” she said. “Assisted suicide tells people that their fears are correct — they may die in pain and no one can help them, their only recourse is to go for assisted suicide.”
The financial strain on hospices is already acute. A Sept. 29 BBC News report highlighted that hospices are cutting services despite rising demand, as government funding has remained stagnant for three years. Toby Porter, CEO of Hospice UK, told the BBC, “What would it say about us as a country if someone decided to opt for an assisted death because they were worried that they wouldn’t be able to get the care they needed to control their pain or manage their symptoms?”
Pro-life advocates echoed these concerns. Catherine Robinson, spokesperson for Right to Life UK, warned that the government’s apparent readiness to fund assisted suicide services without a corresponding commitment to palliative care could create a “perverse push” toward assisted dying. “Hospices urgently need more funding to perform their current duties of care,” Robinson told CNA. “Introducing assisted suicide would stretch an already over-encumbered sector dangerously thin.”
Robinson also raised alarms about the potential lack of opt-out provisions for hospices opposed to assisted dying. “Many hospices opposed to facilitating the deliberate ending of patients’ lives could be forced to close, further reducing the availability of end-of-life care,” she said.
Matthews emphasized the broader societal implications, noting that assisted dying could erode patient choice rather than enhance it. “Given that the very nature of assisted dying means it is the cheaper option, this will inevitably have serious consequences for the funding of hospice care,” she said. “Choice will be taken away if hospices are not adequately funded, and more people will be implicitly coerced into assisted suicide because they will feel they have no choice.”
As the UK grapples with this contentious issue, the future of hospice care hangs in the balance, caught between financial pressures and a shifting legal landscape.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from CNA
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