Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am sorry to prolong the debate on this issue, but I am struggling with the fact that one of your amendments would have the bill say that what is recorded as the “direct cause of death” is the terminal illness, because that will not be the case. Those individuals will have accessed assisted dying because of an illness that would have ultimately led to their death, but it will not be the direct cause of death. I am struggling between your amendment 37 and Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 247, and I do not know where to go on the issue. I think that the answer somehow lies between both amendments.

I raised a similar issue in a previous amendment, although I did not mention the procurator fiscal. The issue would be malicious intervention by other members of the family, and the moral grounds for trying to prevent someone from accessing assisted dying. I was asking for a 10-day window and an independent adjudicator, but my amendment was not passed.

If the procurator fiscal was brought into the process, would that not mean that the length of time that it took for the case to be processed would be such that the person who was trying to access assisted dying might have already died?

Thank you for that intervention on my intervention. In that circumstance, it would be the patient, not the GP, who had raised the matter of assisted dying—that is the key. I cannot envisage any situation in a patient-GP relationship in which it would be appropriate for the GP to raise the issue of assisted dying.

Amendments 178 and 180 seek to deal with concerns, in the event that something does not go to plan, about the liability of medical professionals who are not in the room and are not immediately aware of any adverse reaction, should it occur. In essence, the amendments would ensure that the medical professional providing the substance must remain in the same room as the patient.

I turn to amendments 185, 177, 173 and 175. It has been my approach, as a committee member, to take a neutral stance on the ethical and moral issues surrounding assisted dying and to focus instead on ensuring that the legislation is as good as it can be. In line with that, I have evaluated the approaches that were put to me by organisations looking for someone to lodge amendments on their behalf in order to identify where I believe such amendments would improve the legislation.

There are clearly gaps for the pharmacy profession, which I hope we can address—if not at stage 2, then at stage 3. The concern is that the bill is not clear on the role of pharmacists in the process of assisted dying with respect to their scope of practice. That could also risk devaluing the skills of the pharmacist. Amendment 185 seeks to make provision for registered pharmacists to undertake the role of the authorised health professional, clarifying the role of the pharmacist in the process and allowing them the clear option to use the conscientious objection clause.

Amendment 177 seeks to limit the role of the pharmacist within their scope of practice but does not expect them to make decisions on the competency of the individual.

Amendment 173 seeks to clarify that a pharmacist should supply the substance to the registered medical practitioner or authorised healthcare professional and would also allow the option to use the conscientious objection clause.

Amendment 175 seeks to limit the role of the pharmacist within their scope of practice when acting as an authorised health professional to providing a terminally ill adult with the approved substance and to removing it from the premises at which it was provided.

I move amendment 173.

My concern, which you might be able to address, is that your proposed approach skews matters. If, for example, there was a cancer diagnosis, it would not be recorded as such. That approach could skew a lot of health sector data.

If it does not interfere with the legislative process, I do not see any reason at all why we would not write.

I always have to mention it.

I have to say that I am incredibly uncomfortable with the direction of travel of this conversation. Having listened to the interventions and contributions from colleagues, I can see no circumstances in which a GP would be able to raise the subject of assisted dying in the first instance—

I recognise Mr McArthur’s on-going willingness to work with members and collaborate on the bill, but it seems that there is a presumption that none of the other members in the room have previously spoken to each other about their amendments.

In fact, many more amendments, including some duplicates, would have been lodged had we not spoken to each other. Members have, to date, lodged many amendments to address safeguarding issues and those amendments have been rejected, which concerns me. I have put it on the record that I voted for the principles of the bill at stage 1; I had not decided at that time which side of the argument I would fall on, come stage 3, but I said that there would have to be significant changes to the bill in respect of safeguarding if I was ever to support it at stage 3.

On the specific requests from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the RCN to me, Jackie Baillie and Daniel Johnson on lodging amendments, I note that the RCN is concerned because its members have to deliver on the bill, and to push back against that raises a concern for me.

Of course.