Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Kim Leadbeater and Gregory Stafford

Friday 16th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater]

The patient could request information, but so could doctors and other healthcare professionals. It would be wrong if people were not allowed to share that information if it was requested, even if their employer did not want them to do it.

I turn now to new clause 11 and consequential amendments 64 and 65, which will ensure that the Bill is workable by making provision about the replacement of the co-ordinating doctor or the independent doctor where they are unable or unwilling to continue to carry out their functions in the Bill. The doctor may be ill or on holiday, retire, or have a change of personal circumstances.

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

What concerns me about new clause 11 is that, essentially, people can shop around if one doctor is unwilling. The hon. Lady has given a list of reasons why a doctor might be unwilling, but surely one of the reasons could be that there is a fundamental change in a person’s circumstances and they do not want to do it. Nothing about that is recorded. Is it not a real weakness of new clause 11 that we do not have the passing on of evidence from one doctor to another?

[Kim Leadbeater]

This is not about eligibility; it is about the doctor’s change of circumstances, rather than the patient’s. If the doctor decides that the person is not eligible, they will reject the application. They would record that in the patient’s records, so it would be transparent.