Debbie Purdy has long campaigned for the right to die in dignity.

Debbie, from Undercliffe, who has suffered from multiple sclerosis since the 1990s, won her fight for legal clarification on assisted death when Law Lords backed her call for a policy statement from the Director of Public Prosecutions. She continues to lobby ministers for a debate on changing the law.

This week a Commission on Assisted Dying report said adults likely to have less than a year left to live could be given the chance to ask their doctor for a dose of medication that would end their life.

However, stringent safeguards must be in place to protect those who might not have the mental capacity to make such a choice, or who might be clinically depressed or experiencing pressure from friends or relatives.

While Debbie welcomes the report, she doesn’t think it goes far enough. “But I think that is obviously the law we are in need of now, and 80 per cent of the public think it is the law we are in need of. Everything else needs more discussion,” she says.

The commission, chaired by former Lord chancellor Lord Falconer, says under their proposals a terminally-ill person would need to be able to take the medication themselves, as a clear sign their actions were voluntary.

Paul Smithson, service support manager with the Alzheimer’s Society Bradford says: “People with dementia and their carers should be supported to make plans for the end of their lives, including the expression of preferences about how they would or wouldn’t like to die.

“If people wish to nominate someone to make decisions about end-of-life care or set out the types of treatment they do not wish to receive in an advance decision or ‘living will’, then that should happen as the law allows. The Alzheimer’s Society does not support a change in the law on euthanasia or assisted dying.

“Communicating wishes around end-of-life care is important. Anyone with clear views about their future treatment should talk to those around them as early as possible and make plans using advance directives and other appropriate means.”

Since new guidelines for prosecutors in assisted suicide cases were introduced in February 2010, anyone acting with compassion to help end the life of someone who has decided they cannot go on is unlikely to face criminal charges.

But assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, and individual decisions on prosecution will be made on the circumstances in each case.

The commission called for Parliament to consider developing a new legal framework for assisted dying, saying that the “current legal status of assisted suicide is inadequate, incoherent and should not continue”.

Dr Peter Saunders, campaign director of Care Not Killing, insisted the law does not need changing and branded the commission’s report “unnecessary, biased and seriously flawed”. He said: “It is being spun as a comprehensive, objective and independent review into this complicated issue. It is anything but.”

Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, welcomed the report but said it did not go far enough, adding: “If anything, we would have liked to have seen the Commission go further and recommend a greater change in the law to allow both assisted dying and voluntary euthanasia.”

Says Debbie: “People who argue against a change in the law are arguing to have people living in despair and taking their own lives in unsafe ways. Some people who attempt suicide fail and they end up in a worse situation than they were originally.

“If we had not won in the House of Lords in 2009, I would be dead because I was prepared to go to Dignitas because my disease was getting worse and my abilty to get to Switzerland under my own steam, without implicating anybody else, was becoming more limited. The House of Lords gave me the courage not to.”

Debbie wants Parliament ‘to take the bull by the horns’ to tackle the issue.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman says: “The Government believes that any change to the law in this emotive and contentious area is an issue of individual conscience and a matter for Parliament to decide rather than Government policy.”