Palliative and End-of-life Care: Funding

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

As the noble Lord will be aware, statutory guidance and service specifications are provided to support commissioners in ICBs to meet their duty. As I am sure the noble Lord is also aware, NHS England has developed a palliative and end-of-life care dashboard that brings all the relevant local data together and helps commissioners to understand the situation so that they can provide for their local populations. This is part of ongoing work for this new Government to see how we meet requirements to provide dignity, compassion and service at the end of life and just prior to the end of life.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, although I pay enormous tribute to the hospice movement, there will be some people for whom end-of-life care means assisted dying. We will have the Second Reading of the Bill in November. I hope that my noble friend will be able to give strong government time, if not government support, to enable that Bill to make good progress.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has already reiterated his commitment to allow time for a Private Member’s Bill and a free vote. I recognise that this is an extremely sensitive issue with deeply held views on the various sides of the debate. Our commitment is to ensure that any debate on assisted dying in Parliament will take place in a broader context of access to high-quality palliative and end-of-life care and that we will have robust safeguards to protect vulnerable groups, if the will of Parliament is that the law should change.