Assisted dying: legal ambiguity lets down families as well as patients.

Many doctors fear that, if they write reports for patients who are planning an assisted death (I prefer “medically assisted rational suicide”1), they risk a General Medical Council hearing or even a criminal charge for assisting suicide. The defence societies urge extreme caution. Not being on the medical register means that, although I am qualified to write such reports, I can ignore the GMC, and I have been told—I hope correctly—that the director of public prosecutions (DPP) is unconcerned about reports coming from doctors who are not the patient’s regular medical attendants.