Government would be ‘foolish’ to ignore palliative care warnings over assisted dying
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Committee chair Layla Moran says doctors’ concerns about potential impact on vulnerable patients must be heeded. It would be “foolish” for the government not to heed warnings from doctors about palliative care as MPs press ahead with assisted dying legislation for England and Wales, the chair of the health and social care committee has said.
The bill, which passed its first parliamentary hurdle in November, would give terminally ill adults with six months to live the right to end their lives. It will now be examined by a committee of MPs, who will hear public evidence, starting this month. It is likely to take a number of amendments before it returns to the Commons at the end of April.
The health committee chair, Layla Moran, who voted in favour of the bill, said the government’s aim should be to ensure as few people used the assisted dying mechanism as possible if it passed into law. It is understood the committee will turn its attention to the state of palliative care later this year.
Moran, a Liberal Democrat, said she did not agree with some MPs who were pushing for changes to Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill to stop doctors being allowed to proactively offer an assisted death to patients. “When I speak to doctors, they feel really strongly that if this is a course of treatment, which is a medicalised thing, then it would be wrong to not advise patients and families that this is an option. The question is, how do you do that?”.
