Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Cumberlege Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cumberlege (Con)]

My Lords, my interests are declared in the register. I am aware of my limitations. I am not a philosopher, a theologian or a humanist. What I do understand is the health service. As a GP’s daughter and someone engaged in the NHS, social services and charities, I have seen the services from many different angles. The people who work in the health service have to be practical, highly skilled and very busy. They are ready to make bold decisions and are always trying to do their best. We have a public who expect the health service to always get it right, and when it does not do so they frequently sue. We want things to be medicalised—bad behaviour, obesity, and alcoholism. We are squeamish about death, and this Bill seeks to provide a solution—a gagging draught of poison to sort that one out.

So what are the realities of this Bill? The hope that the GP, who has known us all our life, will spend three or four sessions counselling us about our expectations of life and death is pie in the sky. Most people are registered with a practice, often a large one, which is open five days a week for 10 hours. Any doctor may see us. The doctor of our choice may, allowing for holidays and training courses, be available for 25% of the hours in a year. With a list as long as your arm, time for long, philosophical chats and analysing medical uncertainties is really not on.

Granny and Grandpa have made their wishes known. They have signed papers. Then what happens? They say: “Well it’s best done in hospital isn’t it? After all they know best. We wouldn’t like it at home, it’s not nice”. It is realistic to expect that 80% of those being put to death will be in hospital. There will be a lovely ward with beautiful murals, piped music and easy access to the undertaker set apart from the main hospital whose business is caring and cure—and the budget is out of control. Wait for the great scandal. More legal doses are given at weekends when staff are short, tempers frayed and the drunks are rolling in, causing mayhem. Doctors are busy. They will sign death certificates en bloc for trusted colleagues. The doctor who questions will be sidelined. It was not meant to happen but it is practical. The same will happen with the high hopes of the Bill. We are not talking about a slippery slope. This is a glacier. Doctors are wary because they know the realities; try as they might they may get it wrong. We gave up executing murderers, in part because, on occasion, we got it wrong.

The NHS is magnificent but it loses notes and muddles patients’ names. Bits of paper saying “Please put me down” will end up in the wrong place with the wrong person. If we extrapolate the Dutch experience, we would expect up to 40,000 deaths per annum in seven or eight years’ time. Is this really the triumph we seek? Is this compassion? Is this humanity?

Most of us subscribe to our local hospices, a movement started by Dame Cecily Saunders that has inspired similar work in the rest of the NHS, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. It is they who show true humanity. They bring goodness to death, whereas this Bill brings only despair. In practical terms, would we prefer to die in the arms of one who cares for us, or be administered with venom by a licensed killer?