Meeting of the Parliament 11 March 2026 [Draft]
My amendments in this group are on three main areas: first, on palliative care; secondly, on the requirements that are set out in the medical practitioner’s report; and thirdly, on registered medical practitioners’ discretion.
There are five amendments on palliative care: amendments 23 and 165 to 168. I will turn first to amendment 23.
The bill contains a requirement on the registered medical practitioner to ascertain whether the appropriate social care has been provided or offered to any person seeking assisted dying. Amendment 23 would require that the same registered medical practitioner also ascertains whether appropriate palliative care has been offered or provided to that person. That offers a consistency of approach, and I urge members to support it.
Amendments 165 and 166 would dictate the circumstances in which the registered medical practitioner must refer to a palliative care specialist. Amendment 165 would require such a referral when the appropriate palliative care had not been offered or provided to the person. Amendment 166 would require such a referral when the person’s reasons for seeking assisted dying were that they had uncontrolled symptoms, or fears of such symptoms, which is a particularly important issue for palliative care specialists.
Both of those are clear-cut examples of when the input of a palliative care specialist could make a substantive difference to ensuring that the person seeking assisted dying has all the support required to make an informed decision on assisted dying that is relevant to their circumstances.
In the experience of specialist palliative care practitioners, people with a life-shortening condition who express a wish to shorten their life because of distressing physical or psychological symptoms, including common fears, often change their minds. They often go on to enjoy valuable time once those symptoms have been explored, understood and addressed through appropriate palliative care. Indeed, such people will often say later that they are glad that they did not end their life.
It is not reasonable or safe to assume that someone who made a first declaration to seek assisted dying would already have received appropriate palliative care. In fact, a wish to hasten death might be an indication of a lack of appropriate palliative care.
My amendment 167 would ensure that, if a person chose not to have such a specialist palliative assessment, refusal in itself would not make them ineligible for assisted dying. The person’s autonomy would therefore be respected. Amendment 168 would allow the registered medical practitioner who was carrying out the assisted dying assessment to take into account, if they wished, a refusal to attend a palliative care assessment in their decision making.
Together, those amendments aim to ensure that no one pursues an assisted death without having first received appropriate palliative care and, more specifically, that someone does not pursue an assisted death because of agony that could be treated or because of fears that could be allayed.
My second set of amendments in the group would create a requirement for a medical practitioner’s report to be compiled. The report would set out how any assessment has been reached and would document what evidence was gathered and used to inform the decision and judgment, and the reasons why the practitioner reached their judgment. Without that, the bill contains what, in reality, would be tick-box forms for recording the outcomes of an assessment.
The information to be contained in the report would not be recorded anywhere else under the current provisions in the bill. My amendment 37 would therefore establish a provision for registered medical practitioner reports to capture such important information. Through that, the evidence and reasoning behind each assisted dying decision would be clear.
The medical practitioner’s report would also provide relevant information in case of complaints. It might actually be a source of protection for practitioners when there is absolutely no wrongdoing. Should the bill be passed, those reports would also be an important source to inform understanding of the operation of the act in any review. It is surely only right that, with something as significant as assisted dying, a report is prepared rather than simply a tick-box proforma.
Amendments 38, 39, 40 and 67 are all consequential on amendment 37. Amendment 38 would ensure that, if a request for assisted dying was cancelled, there would be no need to prepare such a report. Amendments 39 and 40 would ensure that the person’s general practitioner would be provided with the medical practitioner’s report and that it would be added to medical records. Amendment 67 would add the report to the regulation-making provisions in the bill for the Scottish Government.
Finally, my last set of amendments in the group aim to add consistency to the discussions that a registered medical practitioner would have with any person seeking an assisted death. Under the bill as it stands, matters of diagnosis, prognosis, available treatments and palliative, hospice and other care options, as well as the nature of the substance that would be provided to a person, would be explained and discussed with them,
“in so far as the registered medical practitioner considers appropriate”.
In reality, that could mean no conversation at all. Amendment 28 would ensure that a conversation would have to take place.
Amendment 32 would ensure that the registered medical practitioner would have to advise the person who was seeking an assisted death to inform their registered medical practitioner that they were seeking an assisted death. They would also be advised to discuss the request with someone close to them.
That was quite a lengthy explanation of my three sets of amendments in the group. All that I would add is that I fully support what Brian Whittle said earlier and the amendments in the name of Fulton MacGregor, who we will hear from shortly.