Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Birt
Lord Birt (CB)
I do not think it for us, in framing in principle amendments, to deal with that level of issue, but the noble Lord is right—that is exactly what the body should do. We are talking about highly distressed people, and it should facilitate different kinds of response and reaction to their difficulty.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
If I heard the noble Lord correctly, he said that anyone going to A&E gets a navigator. He was challenged by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, but he did not hear her question. She said that she never experienced that in her life and neither have I. If any noble Lord has, I would be grateful to hear it. If you go to St Thomas’, the first people you meet are two security guards who are there to keep people out.
Lord Birt (CB)
Plainly, the NHS is a very large organisation and it offers a variety of different kinds of experience. I hope none of us uses A&E very often but, like everybody else, I have used it and, in my experience, I have found it very efficient indeed at handling everything.
As I have said already, there are many issues and if anybody wants to talk to me and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about them, please do. I end with a very simple point, and I address this particularly to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I am utterly convinced that this needs a proper organisational framework. You cannot throw this complexity of issues at the National Health Service. It also needs a more flexible process than currently exists to deal with the complexity that I have outlined, which comes out of the Australian experience. Both those things need to be in the Bill, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and I will be returning to these issues on Report with, I hope, as much help from across the Chamber as possible. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.