Legalising assisted suicide does not lead to a reduction in the number of people who need palliative care, according to a new study. Doctors at the End-Of-Life Care Research Group in Belgium, where euthanasia was legalised in 2002, said there was no evidence that patients who do not access palliative care services may be more likely to opt for physician-assisted suicide.

Legalising assisted suicide does not lead to a reduction in the number of people who need palliative care, according to a new study.

Doctors at the End-Of-Life Care Research Group in Belgium, where euthanasia was legalised in 2002, said there was no evidence that patients who do not access palliative care services may be more likely to opt for physician-assisted suicide.

They said that the legalisation of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon had resulted in more people being referred to hospices and more doctors being trained in palliative care and they argued that the two services could work in unison to benefit terminally-ill patients.

The researchers said: "Our findings in Belgium suggest that life-shortening end-of-life decisions, including euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, do not seem to be prevented by the involvement of multidisciplinary palliative care services, which has been a major argument against legalisation of euthanasia.

"End-of-life decisions and palliative care do not seem incompatible, but if anything seem to reinforce each other."

The research also found a link between spiritual care received and euthanasia. It said: "Receiving spiritual care to a large extent in the final three months of life is associated with a higher incidence of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide than receiving little or no spiritual care at the end of life."

In an accompanying editorial Dr Ira Byock, a director of palliative medicine in the USA, said the data show assisted dying is rarely performed in Belgium and "it would be a mistake to suggest these findings dispel concerns about euthanasia or that they support including euthanasia within palliative care."