{"id":325617,"date":"2025-02-01T09:38:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T15:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=325617"},"modified":"2025-01-31T15:25:34","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T21:25:34","slug":"uk-1-5-six-months-survive-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/uk-1-5-six-months-survive-years\/","title":{"rendered":"SHOCK REPORT from UK: 1 in 5 given six months to live actually survive for three years"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

(Right to Life UK<\/a>) Lives could be \u201dtragically cut short\u201d if assisted suicide becomes law, palliative care specialists have warned, after Government figures revealed patients who are given six months to live frequently survive for a further three years.<\/p>\n

According to data <\/a>obtained by The Telegraph through a freedom of information request, a fifth of people claiming benefits who were thought to have six months left to live were still alive three years later.<\/p>\n

Patients who are thought to have twelve months or less to live by their doctors are entitled to be fast-tracked onto universal credit.<\/p>\n

The data shows that out of 360 who were given this benefit in 2017, 70 (19%) were still alive in 2020. In 2021, 420 of 1,980 claimants (21%) who received this benefit in 2018 were still alive. In 2022, 820 of 4,020 claimants (20%) who were given this benefit in 2019 were still alive. In 2023, 960 of 5,430 claimants (18%) who had been awarded this benefit in 2020 were still alive.<\/p>\n

Predicting life expectancy is often inaccurate<\/strong><\/p>\n

The figures are important because the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill<\/a>, voted through at Second Reading on Friday 29 November, applies to adults who are thought to have fewer than six months to live.<\/p>\n

A number of medical professionals have already spoken<\/a> about the problems in accurately predicting how long a patient will live. As Kim Leadbeater\u2019s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill<\/a> proceeds through its next stage, and following the publication of the Telegraph data, Dr Matthew Dor\u00e9, the honorary secretary of the Association for Palliative Medicine, warned of the dangers of putting too much faith in the six-month provision in the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill. He said<\/a> \u201cUnder assisted dying laws \u2026 lives would have been tragically cut short \u2013 and we would never have known\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we accept a reality where one in five people might miss three more Christmases with loved ones due to the inherent uncertainty of medical prognoses?\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis stark truth exposes the misconception that prognosis is a safeguard: in practice, it comes down to the doctor\u2019s discretion. How can you trust a so-called \u2018safeguard\u2019 which consistently and dramatically fails in being safe?\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a post on X, he added<\/a> \u201cPrognosis in the assisted dying bill is not a safeguard as it consistently is wildly wrong, therefore it does not \u2018safe\u2019 guard anyone\u201d.<\/p>\n

Data \u201cnot surprising to any clinician\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Professor Katherine Sleeman, a specialist in palliative care, echoed Dor\u00e9\u2019s concerns, saying the data was<\/a> \u201cnot surprising to any clinician [b]ut pretty relevant to the [assisted suicide Bill]\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the build-up to the vote for the Leadbeater Bill,\u00a0 Sleeman told The Telegraph<\/a> \u201cIt is not possible to accurately determine someone\u2019s prognosis as a number of months, say six months or 12 months\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a doctor, patients do ask me, \u2018How long have I got left?\u2019 and I would never say, \u2018Six months or fewer.\u2019 I might say, \u2018Your prognosis is probably measured in months, or \u201clong months\u201d.\u2019 That\u2019s as precise as I would be\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone has only a few days, or certainly only a few hours left to live, it can be easier to understand with a higher degree of certainty that they\u2019re likely to die within that time-frame. But when we\u2019re getting into the territory of months, it is very, very difficult\u201d.<\/p>\n

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, a former professor of palliative medicine said \u201cPredicting life expectancy is impossible\u2026 I have known people who live well and actively for years after they were thought to have no more than a few weeks to live\u201d.<\/p>\n

Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said \u201cThis data confirms what senior professors of palliative care and oncology have been saying for a long time \u2013 the six-month life-expectancy limit for those seeking assisted suicide is a poor safeguard\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the Bill, we could expect as many as a fifth of those granted assisted suicide to have a life expectancy that goes far beyond six months. This is yet another problem with the Bill and yet another reason it must be scrapped immediately\u201d.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note: This article was published at Right to Life UK and is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Right to Life UK) Lives could be \u201dtragically cut short\u201d if assisted suicide becomes law, palliative care specialists have warned, after Government figures revealed patients who are given six months to live frequently survive for a further three years. According to data obtained by The Telegraph through a freedom of information request, a fifth of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":669,"featured_media":285084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nSHOCK REPORT from UK: 1 in 5 given six months to live actually survive for three years<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/righttolife.org.uk\/news\/assisted-suicide-row-as-1-in-5-given-six-months-to-live-then-survive-for-three-years-according-to-government-data\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SHOCK REPORT from UK: 1 in 5 given six months to live actually survive for three years\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Right to Life UK) Lives could be \u201dtragically cut short\u201d if assisted suicide becomes law, palliative care specialists have warned, after Government figures revealed patients who are given six months to live frequently survive for a further three years. 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