Dame Esther Rantzen is ‘too ill’ to end her life at Dignitas

She is no longer responding to medication

The 84-year-old presenter has campaigned tirelessly to legalise assisted dying since she received her lung cancer diagnosis in 2023.

However, in a heartbreaking update, her daughter Rebecca Wilcox revealed her mum is too unwell to travel to Switzerland to the Dignitas clinic.

She told 5 News: "Frankly Dignitas is out of the window for us. You have to be relatively healthy to do that. If she had gone, she would have gone months before she would have died here."

The news comes days after Labour's Kim Leadbeater agreed to delay the introduction of the assisted dying Bill until 2029.

Reacting to the delay, Wilcox said: "I just wish that people understood that all the assisted dying Bill is, is a choice for people that want it. All it is is giving you peace of mind, I cannot tell you how powerful that would be right now for my mum.

"She is a person who has fought her whole life for other people, and she has no control now. Why can't we give people like my mum with a terminal diagnosis, with no other choice, some choice as to when and how and where they die!?"

Assisted dying in the UK is illegal and punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Other high-profile celebrities who have campaigned for a change in the law include Bake Off's Prue Leith and Jonathan Dimbleby.

Dame Esther began her career as a sound effects assistant on BBC radio, before becoming a researcher on several shows.

She started presenting the consumer show That's Life! in 1973 and became a household name across the UK.

She also founded Charity Childline in 1986, which has since helped thousands of youngsters with bullying and abuse.