Assisted dead can be more than 4,000 in the 10th year after amending the law

The number of assisted deaths could be more than 4,000 in the 10th year after the law came into effect in England and Wales votes as MPs for this, says an evaluation of the policy.

The estimate is part of the civil servant impact assessmentPerformed by civil servants to inform parliamentary members while they debate whether they can allow assisted dying.

It initially said that the figures are coming up, but it is expected that they will grow over time.

The impact assessment says that the total number of assisted deaths will vary an estimated between 164 and 787 in the first (half) year of the service to between 1,042 and 4,559 in year 10, and assumes a start date for the October 2029 policy.

The upper estimate of just over 4,500 assisted deaths would still represent only less than 1% of all deaths, according to the document.

The impact assessment also offers a financial analysis of the costs and savings – it is not a document that ends up in the ethical or philosophical arguments for and against policy.

It comes when the bill returns to the Lower House later this month, with a crucial vote that will determine whether the bill is expected to take place in mid -June.

In the first six months, the savings for the NHS can vary from around £ 919,000 to £ 10.3 million.

This figure includes hospital care, primary and community care, hospice, medicines and other healthcare costs that someone who chooses an assisted death would not need.

By the time the system has been running for ten years, the savings could vary from £ 5.84 million to £ 59.6 million.

But there will also be costs. The staff of an assisted dying service can cost more than £ 10 million a year within a decade. And the training costs alone in the first six months can be more than £ 11 million.

One assisted death would probably entail six health and healthcare professionals who work 32 hours.

It said that this could remove the staff from existing services, but the overall impact of this was uncertain.

And every panel that would revise cases, consisting of a lawyer, psychiatrist and social worker, could cost £ 2,000 a day.

In general it said it was not possible to calculate whether the costs outweigh the savings or vice versa because there were too many uncertainties.

The Ministry of Health and Social Care said that the government was neutral. It said that the document was produced to ensure that any legislation passing by the parliament is “workable, effective and enforceable”.

Kim Leadbeater, the Labor Member of Parliament behind the bill, said she was grateful for the work that was done with the impact assessment.

She said that she was still “firmly of the opinion that the overall impact of this long -awaited reform will be to make the end of the lifespan in England and Wales more compassionate and considerably safer”.

Speaking with BBC Radio 4’s Today program, she said: “For me, helped dying and giving people a choice at the end of their lives when they are confronted with a terminal illness is about human costs, it’s not about kilos and pence.”

But Baron’s Tanni Gray-Thompson, a former Paralympian and member of the House of Lords, who resisted assisted dying, said: “This assessment emphasizes how assisted dying handicapped and other vulnerable people would give a serious risk of offering financial stimulas in the offering of an overbopping and underrilled and underwilled.

Leadbeater said today that the eligible criteria were “extremely strict” under the bill.

She said: “You have to be terminally ill. There are several layers of security built into the account, including a multidisciplinary panel of experts.

“So we assess mental capacity, we check for coercion at every level of this process to ensure that this is the clear and permanent informed wish of the person who is terminally ill.”

She said that the bill “was only about terminally ill adults who have less than six months to live”. “The bill does not cover people with a disability,” she added.

Prof Katherine Sleeman, professor of Palliative Care at King’s College London, said that the costs for care from the end of the lifespan were “very high”, and of course added “to” someone who doesn’t live last months of life, it’s lower “.

However, she warned that the figures were estimates in the assessment.