Hospitals in euthanasia row

Four London hospitals are allowing elderly patients to request that they be allowed to die, it emerged today.

Doctors are allowed to mark down any request by patients that they be allowed to die if they become critically ill. Hospital managers have told them they can follow any such instruction should the circumstances arise.

A spokesman for the Hammersmith Hospitals Trust, which has launched the initiative, said doctors did not ask patients for their views and only marked their notes should they make a specific demand.

Patients at each of the trust's four hospitals - Hammersmith, Charing Cross, Ravenscourt Park and Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea - are understood to be affected.

The spokesman denied the policy amounted to allowing patients to make a "living will" but reports in today's Daily Mail drew savage criticism from pro-life campaign groups.

Phyllis Bowman of Right to Life said: "You tick the box and you are ticking your life away. Elderly people are very easy to coerce, especially when they are on their own, confused and sick in a hospital bed."

Julia Quenzler, of the SOSNHS campaign group, added: "If ever the elderly and vulnerable needed confirmation that they are considered expendable, this is it." Lib-Dem health spokesman Paul Burstow said: "If this is what Hammersmith are doing they need to rethink.

"At no point should it be acceptable for the purpose of a doctor to be to hasten someone's death.

"There are far too many assumptions made about a person's ability to recover and enjoy life on the basis of their birth date."

The controversy comes as MPs prepare for a row over the issue of "living wills" during tomorrow's debate on the Government's Mental Capacity Bill.

More than 100 MPs from both sides of the House are said to oppose the Bill, which critics call a charter for euthanasia.

The Bill proposes to give legal backing to living wills in which individuals specify how they would be treated should they become incapacitated and unable to communicate.

As "treatment" includes provision of nutrition and water by tube, this could involve allowing death by starvation or dehydration.

Over the weekend medical expert Baroness Warnock fuelled controversy by declaring she did not want to be a "burden" on her family.

The 80-year-old peer said: "In other contexts sacrificing oneself for one's family would be considered good. I don't see what is so horrible about not wanting to be an increasing nuisance." Age Concern branded her stance "outrageous".