A FORMER nurse from Surrey has launched a new local group campaigning to change the law on assisted dying.

Vicky Rimmer, 60, is encouraging local people to get behind her campaign to allow terminally ill people choice and control over their death and the right to die on their own terms.

Her Guildford-based group is the first in Surrey and the newest to join a network of 33 across the country that support Dignity in Dying in campaigning for a change in the law to allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults the option of an assisted death.

Vicky, whose career in the NHS spanned various roles over 39 years and who has won a number of awards for her work on epilepsy, felt compelled to get involved in the campaign having witnessed the lives and deaths of innumerable people from all walks of life.

She explained: “It seems to me at the ending of your life that you should have, if you are mentally competent and terminally ill, the right to choose how and when you exit it.

“Pain and suffering are very individual and subjective states. Only the person suffering can know how bad it is and should be able to choose to end that suffering.

“I am also of the belief that if you are equipped with the means to end your suffering, your anxiety levels would reduce greatly, and with it, the worry of more unendurable pain. Personally I would feel happier to know that I had the option if I ever became terminally ill.

“This is why I have joined the campaign for Dignity in Dying and why I am keen to mobilise local support to ensure our MP votes for a change to the law to allow mentally competent dying adults the autonomy they should expect as their right.”

Dignity in Dying has been supporting Noel Conway, a 68-year-old man with terminal motor neurone disease, to bring a judicial review challenging the current law on assisted dying. Following a hearing at the High Court in July 2017, a judgment was handed down in October 2017 denying permission for the case to proceed.

Vicky’s Surrey group met for the first time on Tuesday, January 16 at the Guildford Institute. For more information email [email protected] or call 020 7479 7737.