Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Turnbull

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Turnbull (CB)]

I will add one point to my noble friend’s argument which is absolutely telling. One can be registered with a GP and never see them for 20 years. You might be a very fit 40 year-old, but you could suddenly get a devastating diagnosis of cancer and wish to talk to your GP. Although you are registered with them, that GP does not know anything about you at all.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Non-Afl)]

I will add to that last point, for which I am grateful. I have been a supporter of the principles of the Bill for almost the whole of my adult life, and I have had the same GP for 26 years. Every year I insist that he looks at my living will form, and we then have a very robust argument, because he is against the principle of assisted dying, and I insist that he takes account of my wishes in that living will form on an annual basis. I know that were I to be in a situation where I would require and wish to take advantage of the Bill, were it to become an Act, I would not be in a position where I could expect him to give me that support. We have been very clear with each other over the past 25 years. I do not know what the position of his colleagues in the practice is, but I am abundantly clear that when that point is reached, I will want to have a GP or a specialist consultant who is able to take a good medical history and read my notes, to understand what medical practitioners over the last 25 years have said about me, and to reach a valid professional judgment about whether my wish—I make that point; it is not the GP’s wish or the family’s wish—to take advantage of this provision is based on a good medical prognosis. It is not beyond the wit of the medical profession to do that even if they do not intimately know me. I hope that we will see that in the Bill.