Er, what? Seems intrusive to me, I don't care about the religious beliefs of my provider unless she/he starts to defer to them before my own wishes for care.
What I would take from this is that many religious doctors are letting their religious beliefs getting in the way of what's best for the patient's. This should be looked into.
It happens here in the US. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040607-644153,00.html
Here's my question: Of the 3000 doctors who responded, how many of them were self-described as "religious"? was it 8% or 50%? And what does "religious" mean within the context? Does that mean Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan? If you follow the other link in the news article, this emerges: i think "somewhat more likely" suggests statistical insignificance...
Can't we all agree that end of life decisions are very complex and tricky? There are more than a few ideas out there on how these things should go, and as of yet, I don't think (thank god) that there is a decided upon metric for deciding how these decisions get made (save for maybe in Holland), although I don't know the laws in the UK. Interestingly, I know many believers who would be horrified if they were in the same situation and an atheist doctor was counseling to pull the plug so to speak. It cuts both ways. With that said, I do believe that all doctors should be sensitive to their patients wishes and beliefs, as long as that doesn't infringe drastically on their own freedom of thought and belief. Frankly, I am not sure how you can eliminate any bias or leaning in this case, unless we stop allowing humans to be doctors and just have robot doctors.
I was being a wee bit facetious. Of course these are always horrible and difficult decisions. And doctors will be subject to the same thoughts on this subject as the rest of us and some will undoubtedly have personal biases one way or the other. As long as families and patients are given the full range of options and help I doubt many sane people will mind if individual doctors err one way or the other slightly when there's tough calls to make.