Esther Rantzen shares heartbreaking health update after medication ‘stops working’

The broadcaster and Childline founder is a passionate campaigner for assisted dying

Dame Esther Rantzen has said she does not have “much longer” to live because a drug she has been taking since 2024 has stopped working.

Last week marked the third anniversary of the 85-year-old’s diagnosis with stage four lung cancer, and she wrote in a piece forThe Observer, saying: “To my astonishment, thanks to one of the new miracle drugs, I’m still here. Not for much longer.

“The drug has stopped working now, and a scan next week will reveal how far my disease has spread.”

Rantzen shared her health update as she made another passionate plea in favour of the assisted dying bill, which she has spent years campaigning for.

The veteran TV star continued: “I’m definitely not going to live long enough to see the assisted dying bill become law. So if my life becomes unbearably painful and I long for a quick, pain-free death, I will have to go to Dignitas in Switzerland, alone.”

Rantzen has spent years campaigning for assisted dying (AFP via Getty)

“All I ask is that future generations be given the confidence and hope of a fast, pain-free death, when they need it most,” she wrote.

The bill will make assisted dying legal in some circumstances in England and Wales. It passed the House of Commons in June 2025, but still needs to pass in the House of Lords – where more than 1,000 amendments have been tabled.

A row has now unfolded with the bill’s supporters claiming opponents in the House of Lords are trying to delay the legislation so that there is not enough time for it to be passed before the current session of Parliament ends this spring.

Rantzen’s daughter, Rebecca Wilcox, centre, celebrates with campaigners after parliament’s historic decision on assisted dying (PA)

Rantzen first shared her lung cancer diagnosis in January 2023, and revealed a few months later that it had progressed to stage four.

She said in 2024 that she had registered with the Swiss assisted dying clinic Dignitas, and has heavily criticised the fact that current UK law means family members could be prosecuted for accompanying a loved one to the Zurich facility.

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Last year, Rantzen said she knew her time left was “extremely limited”, adding: “So now I enjoy each day as it comes as an extra bonus.”

“I am never bored,” she continued. “I even appreciate insomnia in my comfy bed listening to Radio 4 and the World Service. I live in a cottage in the New Forest and am extremely lucky to have a beautiful spring garden to admire.”

Rantzen hosted the BBC’s consumer rights show That’s Life! between 1973 and 1994, and founded the charity Childline in 1986. She founded a second charity, Silver Line, to help combat elderly loneliness, in 2012.