The former health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, last week called for a bill legalising assisted suicide in the United Kingdom. In the meantime she has proposed an amendment to the Suicide Act, which she has tabled as part of parliament’s current consideration of the Coroners and Justice Bill. Her amendment aims to protect from prosecution relatives and friends who help their loved ones go abroad to end their lives.

“In the long term we need a bill to change the law to allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults suffering at the end of their lives …