Assisted dying

RCGP Position

The Royal College of General Practitioner’s Council voted to move to a position of neither supporting nor opposing assisted dying being legal on 14 March 2025.

A copy of the press statement released following the UK Council vote can be found on our website:
RCGP shifts to position of neither supporting nor opposing assisted dying.

UK Council was asked to vote between the following options to determine RCGP’s position. The RCGP’s position was determined by the option that received the largest number of votes from UK Council. The results of the UK Council vote were:

  • 39% said the RCGP should oppose assisted dying being legal
  • 61% said the RCGP should move to a position of neither supporting nor opposing assisted dying being legal
  • 0% said the RCGP should support assisted dying being legal, subject to an appropriate regulatory framework and safeguarding processes
  • 0% abstained.

The UK Council debate and subsequent decision was informed by an all-member survey that ran between 24 January and 10 February 2025, which received 8,779 responses. This follows Council's decision in November 2024 that the RCGP should undertake a member survey to inform Council’s review of the RCGP's in principle position on whether or not assisted dying should be legal. This review of the RCGP’s position on this issue was committed to by Council in September 2024, in light of significant developments in the legislative landscape in the UK and in the Crown Dependencies.

The College commissioned Savanta – a third-party independent research agency – to administer the member survey. The survey was in field between 24 January and 10 February 2025.

The full summary report from Savanta outlining the weighted survey results:
RCGP Assisted Dying Members Survey results - Savanta Report (February 2025) (PDF file, 688 KB)

This survey was not a referendum; the results of each question were non-binding and were intended to help inform RCGP Council about the views of the RCGP membership. The survey data was weighted to be representative of the overall RCGP membership data on the basis of gender, location, age, and membership type.

RCGP members were asked what they believed the RCGP's position should be on whether or not assisted dying should be legal (weighted result):

  • 47.6% of respondents said that the RCGP should oppose assisted dying being legal
  • 13.6% said the RCGP should move to a position of neither supporting nor opposing assisted dying being legal
  • 33.7% said the RCGP should support assisted dying being legal, subject to an appropriate regulatory framework and safeguarding processes
  • 5.1% were undecided.

Members were then asked if none of the three statements in the previous question were selected by more than 50% of respondents, which of the following approaches RCGP Council should take (weighted result):

  • 23.8% said the College should adopt the position chosen by the highest number of respondents
  • 49.8% said the College should adopt a position of neither supporting nor opposing assisted dying being legal
  • 19.4% said neither of the above
  • 7% were undecided.

A breakdown of the full results and tables (both the weighted and the unweighted data):

The following definition of assisted dying was provided by the RCGP in the member briefing and set out in the 2025 survey:

"The RCGP defines assisted dying as the act of intentionally assisting a person to end their own life, at that person’s voluntary request. This includes healthcare professionals prescribing lethal drugs for a patient to self-administer – which is sometimes referred to as ‘physician-assisted suicide’ or ‘physician-assisted dying’, and healthcare professionals administering lethal drugs – which is often referred to as ‘voluntary euthanasia’."

Influencing

The College will continue to engage with the legislative debate both to ensure that any changes to the law protect the interests of all patients and healthcare professionals, and that palliative care is appropriately resourced.

In September 2024, RCGP Council agreed a set of principles that should be applied if legislation is introduced to legalise assisted dying in any of the jurisdictions of the UK or the Crown Dependencies. These principles have fed into the College's ongoing influencing activity in response to the current legislative developments on assisted dying.

These principles include that:

  • Any assisted dying service should be seen as a standalone specialised service that GPs and other healthcare professionals may opt to provide with additional training and should not be deemed core GP work.
  • There should be a right for GPs to refuse to participate in the assisted dying process on any ground, and statutory protection making it unlawful to discriminate against them for doing so.
  • An independent and transparent system of oversight, monitoring and regulation should be established.
  • There should be a full and extensive consultation on defining the regulatory framework, standards and training for all those involved in delivering assisted dying services. Work to define standards and training for those involved in delivering assisted dying services would need to be conducted on a cross College, multi-professional basis.
  • Any assisted dying service would need to be separately and adequately resourced and should not, in any way, result in a de-prioritisation of core general practice or palliative care services.

RCGP’s latest briefings:

  • UK Council first adopted a position of opposition to a change to the law on assisted dying in 2005. In 2014, this position was reaffirmed following an engagement exercise with the College's Faculties, Devolved Councils, groups and committees.
  • Following the completion of a member consultation in 2019, in February 2020, UK Council voted to maintain a position of opposition to a change in the law on assisted dying. The survey, conducted by Savanta ComRes, was advisory, so Council could be informed of its members' opinions on the topic. A breakdown of the full results from the 2019 survey (PDF file, 715 KB).
  • In September 2024, UK Council decided that a review of the College's position on this topic should be brought forward, prior to the existing timeframe of February 2025, in the light of significant legislative developments. In November 2024, UK Council decided that the College should undertake a member survey before taking a decision. A member survey was then commissioned and launched in January 2025 and the results were brought back to RCGP Council in March 2025 to help inform its decision on the position that the RCGP should take going forward.