Disabled campaigners urge PM Andy Burnham to reform care before assisted dying bill

Disabled and terminally ill campaigners have written to Prime Minister Andy Burnham urging him to reform social and palliative care before assisted dying legislation is introduced in England and Wales.

The Assist Us To Live group says people are currently being "failed by society" and "introducing assisted dying in these circumstances will put sick and disabled people's lives at risk".

Burnham believes the funding of palliative and social care should be "fixed" before assisted dying is considered. The government is likely to remain officially neutral, but the PM's remarks suggest he personally will not back the bill proposed by Labour MP Lauren Edwards.

Bill supporters argue improving care services and giving terminally ill people "autonomy" over their final weeks must go hand in hand.

The proposed law - known as the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - would allow people over the age of 18 who were expected to die within six months to be given help to end their own life, subject to certain safeguards.

Having a disability in and of itself does not mean you would be able to seek help to end your life.

This is the second time a backbench bill like this is going through the House of Commons.

MPs voted in favour of a bill proposed by Labour MP Kim Leadbetter in 2025, but it was not passed by the House of Lords after an unprecedented number of suggested amendments delayed its progress until it ran out of time in April this year.

Edwards reintroduced an identical bill in June in order to "finish the job" started by Leadbeater. It is due to be debated in the Commons on 11 September.

Opponents of the bill believe the legislation has substantial flaws and would pose risks to disabled people, putting pressure on them to end their lives.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the UK's regulator, says legislation is "likely to have particular impacts on people with certain protected characteristics, especially older and disabled people, external".

Last year, the commission's chair Baroness Falkner said: "While the bill provides safeguards against a person being coerced or pressured to end their own life by another individual, we know that disabled people, older people and especially older disabled people, may feel pressured to prematurely end their lives by societal attitudes and a lack of the support and services they need."

Edwards has said there is time to improve end-of-life care before any assisted dying service would come into effect under her proposed law, given a four-year implementation period had been agreed in the previous debates.

Comedian Rosie Jones, and actors Liz Carr and Ruth Madeley are among dozens of prominent disabled people in the arts, media and academia who have signed the open letter to MPs.

The letter says: "At the moment, sick and disabled people, including terminally ill people, are denied choice over the most basic of things: our ability to get out of bed, wash, eat, leave our houses or manage our pain.

"This creates a coercive environment where people will choose an earlier death simply because they are being failed by society.

"Put simply, introducing assisted dying in these circumstances will put sick and disabled people's lives at risk.

"No one wants any terminally ill person to suffer unnecessarily at death. But we must protect the lives and rights of disabled and terminally ill people in life."

The group is calling for more funding for palliative care so "no one feels pressured to end their lives simply because they are not receiving the medical help they deserve".

It also calls for the government to abolish the social care savings threshold for working-age people and equalise staff pay between social care and the NHS.