February 23, 2025
Social Workers to sit on UK Assisted Dying Panels
by Mithran Samuel
Social workers would sit on three-person panels set up to review adults’ requests for assisted dying under a proposed amendment to the bill to legalise the practice.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, sponsor of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, has proposed that the panels – which would also comprise a psychiatrist and a senior lawyer – should consider requests for an assisted death that had been already signed off by two doctors.
Role of panels including social workers
The panels’ role would be assess whether the statutory requirements for an assisted death had been met, including that the person:
- has an inevitably progressive illness and is expected not to live beyond a further six months;
- has capacity to make the decision to end their life;
- has a clear, settled and informed wish to end their own life;
- made the initial declaration that they wanted to end their life voluntary and was not coerced or pressured into making it.
The panels would have to take evidence from at least one of the two doctors and may also hear from the person themselves or any other person.
Replacing court role
Under the bill as currently stands, this role would be carried out by the High Court. However, concerns have been raised about the impact this function would have on court capacity, at a time when the judicial system is already under significant pressure.
Under Leadbeater’s proposal, the social worker member would need to be a registrant on either Social Work England’s or Social Care Wales’s register.
The panels would be appointed by a Voluntary Assisted Dying Commissioner, a new role appointed by the prime minister that would be held by a senior judge. This would be provided for by another of Leadbeater’s proposed amendments to her bill.
The amendments will be discussed by the committee scrutinising the bill after Parliament returns from its current recess next week.
Argument over level of safeguards
In a committee debate last week, bill opponent Danny Kruger raised concerns that replacing the High Court with a panel would weaken provisions in the bill protecting people from being coerced into ending their lives.
In response, Leadbeater cited the evidence of the Association of Palliative Care Social Workers (APCSW) to the committee in arguing that the panels would consist of practitioners with expertise in tackling coercion.
Though neutral on the question of assisted dying, the APCSW and the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) welcomed Leadbeater’s plan.
Social workers ‘uniquely qualified’ for role
The APCSW said: “The inclusion of social workers as core members of these panels shows that Kim Leadbeater and her colleagues have taken on board our arguments that social workers are uniquely qualified and equipped to undertake the complex and sensitive tasks of assessing mental capacity and safeguarding individuals who may be subject to any form of undue influence or coercion.”
It added: “The choices that people make as they approach the end of their lives are strongly influenced by their relationships with others and by the practical circumstances of their lives. This holistic perspective is our native ground as social workers.”
BASW issued a similar message, saying: “Individuals considering assisted dying, and their families, need holistic advice and support. The multi-disciplinary panel also potentially provides the framework to resolve issues of mental capacity and adult safeguarding, both issues which sit with social workers.”
Panels ‘would need to be backed by resource and training’
However, it added that the panels would require sufficient resource to ensure they were adequately staffed, while practitioners serving on them would need appropriate training and supervision to fulfil their roles.
There is a majority in favour of assisted dying on the committee, suggesting that the amendments will be agreed.
The bill will then return to the House of Commons for further debate and a final vote. Though MPs backed the bill in principle previously, the changes proposed by Leadbeater may lead to a weakening of support.
