The crossbench peer Lord Joffe yesterday signalled a willingness to compromise on his bill to legalise medically assisted suicide in the face of fierce opposition from all sides in the House of Lords and beyond.

Rather than propose that doctors be authorised in strictly regulated circumstances to administer lethal medicine - so-called voluntary euthanasia - Lord Joffe told a crowded chamber of peers that he is now minded to restrict its scope to allowing doctors to prescribe drugs which patients would administer themselves.

Lord Joffe spoke as peers embarked on a protracted debate on a Lords select committee report on the issue which was commissioned when his original bill drew hostile fire in the last parliament.

A new bill is expected in November and yesterday Lord (John) Patten, a former Tory minister and one of several Catholic critics in the chamber, claimed ministers might be willing to provide time to ensure the bill is passed. Rightly or wrongly, that would lead to claims that ministers "wish to save money in the NHS" by helping terminally ill people to die, he said.

The government later confirmed that its position is "neutral". Ministers are aware that, as with abortion and other so-called pro-life issues, a substantial body of peers and MPs - not all Catholic - will fight fiercely to prevent any liberalisation.

Chaired by Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the former Tory lord chancellor, the Lords select committee took expert medical and ethical evidence from 140 people in five countries. The Mackay committee's core recommendations were that a clear distinction should be made between assisted suicide, permitted in Switzerland since 1942, and voluntary euthanasia which has evolved slowly and been officially legal since 2002. An estimated one in 40 deaths there are now attributed to it.

It also suggested that a future bill must authorise exactly what a doctor might be allowed to do and that safeguards such as psychological disorders might be needed. A test of "unrelievable" suffering rather than merely "unbearable" might be wise.

It was the Mackay committee's proposals - which divided peers on the committee, as it did not when euthanasia was last discussed several years ago - which prompted Lord Joffe, a 73-year-old human rights lawyer and businessman, born in South Africa, to adopt a more conciliatory note yesterday.

"The select committee report recommended that in any future bill, a clear distinction should be drawn between assisted dying and voluntary euthanasia," Lord Joffe said. Some 650 people a year would be expected to seek to use the bill, he predicted.

"Having discussed this recommendation with seven of the 13 members of the committee, which is a majority, I established that all seven would support the principle of a bill which limited its application to assisted suicide, where a patient takes responsibility for the final stage of ending of his or her life," he said.

No vote was expected last night as peers groped towards a viable consensus that both sides could accept.

The archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster are among those voicing concern this week, echoed by bishops in yesterday's debate. One YouGov poll showed 87% of voters supporting the right of terminally ill patients to seek help in dying.

The British Medical Association (BMA) dropped its long-standing opposition to assisted suicide at its annual conference in July. Instead it adopted a neutral stance.

During the debate Lord Carter, a former Labour chief whip, warned that many old people fear that a change in the law will change attitudes.

"There's an unspoken fear among the parents of disabled children - whatever the age of the children may be - what if we die first? Who will take the life and death decisions if we aren't there?" he said.