Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Does the noble Baroness not share my concerns about the misdiagnosis of six months, when you think of all the people who live for much longer afterwards?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

While that is absolutely a legitimate thing to discuss, and I would always defer to doctors on that, it makes no difference to this part of the argument of whether we call it dying. The noble Lord may well want to raise the question of whether we can ever be sure that someone is dying, although I have to say that I cannot be the only one who has been with someone where it is jolly clear that they are not going to live till the end of the week. There are times when you absolutely know that someone is going to die. While he may well be right that there are other cases, that is not the issue of this word. This word in the Bill is to give to the public the understanding that we are talking about whether there is a way of helping either the final timing or the way of those final days. We are not talking about someone who just decides to commit suicide for some other reason; we are talking about people who are dying from some sort of terminal illness.