10th January 2025

At St Michael’s Hospice, our mission to support people to live well with dying, death and loss guides everything we do. This includes how we navigate sensitive topics like assisted dying. The experience, insight, and compassion within our team are invaluable in guiding us toward a position that reflects who we are as a hospice.

We know that many of our supporters have questions and believe it is important to share with you our current position, as we continue to listen and encourage conversation around this topic.

On 29 November 2024, MPs voted in favour of the principles of assisted dying and whilst a change in legislation is not guaranteed and is some way off, we know that this sensitive and emotive topic will create a mixture of views and opinions.

At St Michael’s Hospice, it’s not our role to either support or oppose a change in the law on assisted dying. Rather, our aim is to ensure the experience and expertise of our patients, their families, our employees, volunteers, health and care partners and community are heard in this important national conversation.

Everyone should be able to access high quality palliative and end of life care, no matter who they are, where they are or why they are ill. Nobody should ever feel they have to make the choice to have an assisted death because of a real or imagined fear of not receiving the care and support they need. It’s encouraging that people on all sides of the assisted dying debate recognise that hospices need to be properly funded to continue to provide high quality palliative and end of life care whether or not the law changes.

We will continue to listen and encourage conversations about this important topic whilst we maintain our focus on supporting and enabling the community of Hastings and Rother to live well with dying, death and loss.