A Victorian cross-party state committee has delivered a groundbreaking report recommending the State Government legalise assisted dying for people suffering from serious and incurable conditions.

Key points: Report makes 49 recommendations

Report makes 49 recommendations Adults could end their lives if suffering serious, incurable conditions

Adults could end their lives if suffering serious, incurable conditions Doctors prescribing lethal drugs would need to be protected, report says

The controversial recommendations were handed down by Parliament's Legal and Social Issues Committee, which has been investigating options for the terminally ill over the past 10 months.

The report makes 49 recommendations covering assisted suicide and amending the Crime Act, to protect doctors who act within the assisted dying legislation.

"The Government should introduce legislation to allow adults with decision-making capacity, suffering from a serious and incurable condition who are at the end of life to be provided assistance to die in certain circumstances," the report said.

It said the request to die must come from the patient in the final weeks or months of their life and must be approved by a primary doctor and an independent secondary doctor.

"Each doctor must be properly qualified to make a professional diagnosis and prognosis regarding the patient's specific condition," the report said.

Assisted dying should involve a doctor prescribing a lethal drug, which the patient could take without further assistance, unless the person is physically unable to take the legal drug themselves.

"It is essential that the patient must be experiencing enduring and unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved in a manner which they deem tolerable," the report said.

"This is fundamental to patient-centred care, and is a subjective measure judged by the patient themselves."

The committee's report paves the way for a change in the law and calls for the implementation of a taskforce to examine the best approach to legislative change.

It also recommended an Assisted Dying Review Board, to ensure that doctors are complying with requirements of the assisted dying framework.

The committee said any breaches should be reported to Victoria Police.

Traumatic death could have been avoided

Relatives who have lost family members to terminal illness welcomed the report.

Tara Szafraniec's father was a palliative care nurse who died last year after a battle with cancer.

"He had purchased Nembutal before he passed away, but unfortunately he didn't get to take it, his death ended up being quite extraordinary and nothing we could have predicted and everything we feared it would be," she said.

"Our belief is that if a regulative system would have been in place earlier we could have avoided that traumatic experience that we had."

She said she believed her father would have been happy with the contents of the report and urged MPs to carefully consider the recommendations.

Proposed assisted dying framework The request must come from the patient

The request must come from the patient Must be completely free of coercion

Must be completely free of coercion Must be repeated three times through an initial verbal request, a formal written request and final verbal request

Must be repeated three times through an initial verbal request, a formal written request and final verbal request Patient may withdraw request at any time

"There can be safeguards in place, you can put a system in place that can actually make this a reality for people who need it the most," she said.

"It is a small number of people who access this and the relief that it gives them... even if they don't use it, is incredibly important."

Paediatrician Dr Harley Powell said he believed the report was in line with the majority of the views in the community.

"It'll relieve the suffering of people who are fearful of the consequences of dying," he said.

He said medical professionals who act within the assisted dying legislation would also look forward to protection.

"It's our job to have compassion for people who are suffering."

Committee chair Ed O'Donohue urged the Government to respond quickly to the recommendations.

He said evidence from the Victorian Coroner and Victorian Police indicated that between 2009 and 2014, 240 people who were approaching death committed suicide.

"People who are nearing death, who are fearing a painful end of life are committing suicide in horrific, in troubling and in terrible ways... the committee has resolved we cannot turn a blind eye to this continuing into the future," he said.

Mr O'Donohue said the committee had examined similar legislation overseas and the report's recommendations provide a rigorous framework for assisted suicide.