Wes Streeting questions affordability of setting up NHS assisted dying service

Streeting said: ‘Politics is about prioritising. It is a daily series of choices and trade-offs. I fear we’ve made the wrong one.’ Photograph: Thomas Krych/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock

Wes Streeting has voiced doubts over whether the NHS can afford to establish an assisted dying service, after MPs passed a bill to legalise the procedure last week.

The health secretary was previously a supporter of assisted dying but switched sides last year, expressing concerns about the ethics of offering such a service before significant improvements could be made to the NHS.