Meeting of the Parliament 13 March 2026 [Draft]
My amendments in this final group relate to the review of the operation of the bill, which will be essential if the bill is passed. It will be possible to review the bill’s operation effectively and meaningfully only if adequate data is gathered while it is in operation. Therefore, amendment 278 and related amendment 285 require periodic detailed reviews of a representative sample of cases, so that qualitative evidence is available on the bill’s operation if it becomes law. That is aided by the Parliament having agreed to my amendments on the medical practitioner’s report requirements earlier in our deliberations.
After stage 2, the bill required only basic statistics to be gathered. Those statistics are important but mainly quantitative and, on their own, cannot shed light on some aspects of the bill. For example, what is the experience of registered medical practitioners in assessing people for capacity and coercion? What works well and what have they found difficult? What is the experience of family members who are involved in the process? Were there difficulties that could have been avoided? How adequate did they find the public information that is provided for in the bill?
The Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care has told me that a case review process in Ontario, Canada, proved to be vital in identifying deficiencies in assessments and the safeguarding of vulnerable people, so why not have such a process in the bill?