THE Royal College of Physicians warned MPs today that the assisted suicide Bill risks “failing to protect vulnerable patients.”

Kim Leadbeater MP’s End of Life (Terminally Ill Adults) Bill returns to the Commons for its report stage tomorrow. This could be followed by its third and final reading in the same session, though the number of amendments for debate make it likely it will need further parliamentary time next month.

The physicians are the second leading medical body to express fears this week, after the Royal College of Psychiatrists published a range of concerns on Tuesday, including over how psychiatrists would fulfil their responsibility to treat suicidal depression if it were legalised, and protections for the mentally ill.

“There currently remain deficiencies [in the Bill] that would need addressing to achieve adequate protection of patients and professionals,” the physicians said.

These included the need for face-to-face assessments to determine whether a person had been put under pressure to end their life. They also said prognoses should be informed by clinical experts “including those who know the patient,” all measures absent from the Bill.

Neither royal college is for or against assisted suicide in principle.

The Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who supported the Bill at second reading, said today that his position had not changed.

And a group of supportive MPs issued a statement seeking to rally MPs behind the Bill.

The MPs, including doctors Neil Shastri-Hurst, Simon Opher and Peter Prinsley, said the current law was not working and “criminalises compassion.”

But Paula Peters of Disabled People Against Cuts said she was not reassured by changes to the Bill at committee stage, and urged MPs to vote it down.

“The committee voted down most of the safeguard amendments, they’ve removed [sign-off by a] High Court judge,” she said.

“That you can apply for assisted dying if you are a financial burden on your family is worrying when we have disability benefit cuts going through.”

Labour MP Diane Abbott told the Morning Star it was clear “health workers of all kinds are very uneasy about the provisions of this Bill, its lack of safeguards, and who will end up being victims.

“Many of us will be making these points in the Commons debate.”