KEY STATISTICS

UK CITIZENS AND SWITZERLAND

At least one British citizen per week travels to Switzerland for an assisted death; – a six fold rise since 2005.
On average an assisted death in Switzerland costs over £12,000.
Over 1,500 UK citizens are members of a Swiss assisted dying organisation.

88% of the public favours changing the law on assisted dying for both the terminally ill and incurably ill, in at least some circumstances.
88% of people who identify as disabled favour changing the law on assisted dying in at least some circumstances.
71% of people who identify as religious support changing the law on assisted dying.
92% of people who identify as non-religious support changing the law.
50% of doctors personally support changing the law as per the British Medical Association’s survey on assisted dying,
58% of doctors believe that, if the law were to change, patients with physical conditions causing intolerable suffering which cannot be relieved should be able to access an assisted death.

More than 400 million people around the world have a legal right to die.
Assisted dying accounts for 4% of deaths in Canada.
In Canada, the vast majority of people have an assisted death because they’re less able to engage in enjoyable life activities (82.1%), are in severe pain (56.4%), or worried about their loss of dignity (53.3%).
In Oregon, on average a third of people approved for assisted deaths decide not to take their life-ending medication. In most cases, that’s because having the security of knowing they can end their suffering if it ever became too much to bear is enough.

According to the Office of Health Economics, in the UK, even if every dying person who needed it had access to good quality palliative care, 6,394 people per year would still have no effective pain relief in the final three months of their life.
In Canada, 78% of people who requested assisted deaths received palliative care.
Dementia is the leading cause of death in the UK, accounting for 1 in 8 of all deaths. However, less than 1% of patients in inpatient hospices suffer from dementia in the UK.

45% of UK doctors believe that some healthcare professionals already assist their patients to end their life; it is estimated that around 1,000 people are helped to die every year illegally.
It is estimated that at least 30% of overseas assisted deaths are unknown to the police.