During an impassioned debate at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) annual congress in Harrogate, at least half of those who spoke called for a change in RCN policy.

The debate was not intended to lead to a vote and afterwards Maura Buchanan, the vice-president, said that the RCN would not change its stance.

The college recently had sought the views of its members to respond to the House of Lords select committee on Lord Joffe’s assisted dying Bill, and 70 per cent had indicated their opposition to a softer line.

“It’s easy to parade views on why the law should be changed, but the law is there to protect vulnerable people,” Ms Buchanan said. “I came into nursing to save life, not to end it.” The whole relationship between patients and nurses was at issue, she added.

The debate suggested, though, that a substantial minority of nurses do not share her view. Helen Ingram, a nurse from Lewisham in southeast London, said that the RCN view was based on the assumption that the law banning euthanasia worked. It did not, she said. The Lords committee had shown that assisted dying laws in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Oregon in the United States did work. “

I implore council to drop its opposition to the Bill,” she said. She called for a neutral stance on the issue in line with other royal colleges.

Andy Meal, from North West Surrey, said that modern drugs often enabled adequate control of pain at the end of life. “But as hard as we may try, we cannot give everybody the death they would wish,” he said. “People have the right to decide when their life should end.”

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