Health, Social Care and Sport Committee 04 November 2025
My amendment 128 and consequential amendments 138, 141 and 142 would require the Scottish Government to produce regulations about the regulation and oversight of persons who would carry out assisted dying under the bill. The purpose of that is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the people who are provided with assisted dying. Such regulations should include the regulation of settings in which assisted dying may or may not take place, regulations determining and making provision for the role of Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate in regulation and scrutiny, and provisions for a process through which to raise concerns about the provision of assisted dying to a person.
The bill is silent on institutional responsibilities for the delivery of assisted dying; it merely permits practitioners to provide assisted dying in certain circumstances. Even the most basic organisational model setting out duties and responsibilities is missing. That is something that the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care has concerns about, and I agree with it.
The bill contains no requirements that the provision of assisted dying should be subject to any system of regulation or scrutiny. Although assisted dying might take place in the NHS, it might also take place in the private or third sector, as Jackie Baillie indicated. Either way, surely there is a need to provide powers to scrutinise and regulate a life-and-death activity such as assisted dying.
The bill makes no provision for a process by which people might raise concerns about the provision of assisted dying to a person. It is likely that, from time to time, people might wish to raise a concern about the assisted dying process and the provision of assisted dying to a person in a specific instance—or, indeed, to raise concerns about the role of any organisation that is facilitating assisted dying more generally.
The bill should make provision for such a process. My amendments seek powers that would enable the Scottish Government to establish a system of scrutiny and regulation of assisted dying and to establish a process by which people could raise a concern about specific instances of assisted dying processes and provision. That process would be established in regulations under the affirmative procedure, which would have to come into force before other provisions in the act could be implemented.