Dame Esther Rantzen joins Dignitas as cancer worsens - how much does it cost?

Dame Esther Rantzen has said she is considering the option of assisted dying if her lung cancer treatment does not improve her condition.

The 83-year-old Childline founder and broadcaster, who revealed in May that her cancer had progressed to stage four, has joined Swiss organisations Dignitas. In an interview with BBC’s The Today Podcast, she called for a free vote on assisted dying as she feels it is “important that the law catches up with what the country wants”.

Speaking to Nick Robinson and Amol Rajan, she said her next scan in a few weeks’ time will tell her “whether the miracle drug is performing its miracle or whether it’s given up”.

She added: "I have joined Dignitas. I have in my brain thought, well, if the next scan says nothing’s working I might buzz off to Zurich - but it puts my family and friends in a difficult position because they would want to go with me. That means that the police might prosecute them. So we’ve got to do something. At the moment, it’s not really working, is it?

"I explained to them that actually I don’t want their last memories of me to be painful because if you watch someone you love having a bad death, that memory obliterates all the happy times and I don’t want that to happen."

Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

According to Dignity in Dying, an assisted death in Zurich can cost anywhere between £6,500 to more than £15,000, with the average sitting at around £10,000. Earlier this year, the campaign group reported that British membership of Dignitas was at an all-time high, with an annual membership fee of £47.

Dame Prue Leith, 83, is also a long-standing campaigner on the issue of choice for terminally ill people, having witnessed her brother David die a painful death from bone cancer in 2012.