CLINICIANS and carers in England could be put at risk of breaking the law when dealing with terminally ill Jersey patients who want to return home to end their lives if the Island legalises assisted dying, a senior House of Lords peer has warned.
It is also thought that the law change could mean such patients become trapped in the UK.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, who is a professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University School of Medicine and a current member of the House of Lords, said the “legal issue” would arise for Islanders who are treated in English hospitals but wish to return home for an assisted death under Jersey law.
She warned that English clinicians involved in arranging or facilitating a patient’s transfer back to the Island could be committing a criminal offence under the Suicide Act, even if assisted dying legislation were to pass in England and Wales.
The Baroness was writing in a submission to the Assisted Dying Review Panel, a group of politicians responsible for examining the final proposals for the introduction of assisted dying in Jersey.
She explained: “If a patient wishes to return to Jersey for an assisted death under Jersey law, the clinical team caring for them would be committing a crime in arranging transfer
back to Jersey as they would be in breach of the Suicide Act in England and Wales, even if legislation is passed in England and Wales.
“This is because the eligibility criteria for an assisted death in England and Wales would not be fulfilled and therefore assistance would be illegal.”
Baroness Finlay said this legal conflict emerged during recent scrutiny of assisted dying proposals in Westminster.
During a scrutiny hearing in the UK, she asked whether doctors in England could be prosecuted for arranging the transfer of patients back to Jersey, if they did not meet eligibility criteria under English law.
Senior civil servant Paul Candler explained that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would only protect actions taken strictly within England and Wales and strictly within the terms of the legislation.
Any assistance connected to an assisted death taking place elsewhere, he said, would still fall under the Suicide Act.
“It would involve an assisted death being arranged outside England and Wales and outside the parameters of this scheme, and so therefore it would be caught by the Suicide Act,” he said.
Terminally-ill Islanders receiving treatment in the UK could therefore be left unable to return home without placing doctors at risk of prosecution.
Earlier this year, Jersey’s government lodged a proposition which sets out the framework for terminally ill adults living in the Island to end their lives, who could be eligible, how the process would work and what checks would apply.
If it is adopted, Jersey would become the second place in the British Isles to introduce such a law, after proposals to give terminally ill adults in the Isle of Man were agreed by the Manx parliament in March.
If approved during debate next year, the draft law will require an 18-month implementation period, meaning the earliest the law could come into force in Jersey is mid-2027.
