Surgeon backs right-to-die

ONE of Britain’s top surgeons has backed the right-to-die campaign by insisting that he would be willing to help terminally ill patients end their lives.

Terence English, who performed Britain’s first heart transplant, has offered his support to an influential steering committee that backs assisted dying.

He told The Sunday Times: “A doctor has responsibility first to the patient and, if I knew that patient was terminally ill, was of sound mind and hadn’t been got at by friends and relatives, I would be prepared to assist him or her.”