THE Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, has welcomed a report by MPs which calls for palliative and end-of-life care to be made more widely available.
The report, on assisted dying, from the cross-party House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, was published on Thursday after an inquiry begun in December 2022.
The report doesn’t state whether the law should change to permit assisted dying: the chair, the Conservative MP Steve Brine, said that the commitee intended the report back to be “a major and useful resource for future debates on the problem”.
It does, nonetheless, say that the Government should consider find out how to respond if one other jurisdiction within the UK or Crown dependency legalises assisted dying: it looks “increasingly likely” that Jersey will achieve this, the report says.
It identifies a standard theme within the evidence to the committee: “the pursuit of the absolute best end of life care, and what many witnesses called ‘a great death’, where the person dying was cared for with compassion and high-quality care and supplied with as much agency and selection as possible. However, there’s spectrum of views on find out how to best achieve this.”
Access to and provision of palliative and end-of-life care within the UK is “patchy”, nonetheless. The report calls on the Government to “ensure universal coverage of palliative and end of life services, including hospice care at home. It is significant that everyone seems to be capable of select what kind of support they need at the top of their life, and that their advanced care plan is honoured where possible.”
The Government can also be urged to extend funding for hospices.
Responding to the report, Bishop Mullally, who was Chief Nursing Officer for England from 1999 to 2004, said that, during her 20 years within the NHS, she had “witnessed first-hand the critical role that palliative care plays for patients and for his or her families”. While the UK had “a few of one of the best palliative-care services on this planet”, nonetheless, “they’re currently underfunded and overly reliant on charitable donations.
“This is why I welcome the report’s call for the Government to make sure universal coverage of palliative and end-of-life services, including hospice care at home, and its advice that the Government commits to an uplift of funding to ensure support for hospices in need of monetary help. I also welcome the decision for higher mental-health support for terminally sick people.”
Bishop Mullally also drew attention to the General Synod’s support in 2022 for a personal members’ motion that called on the Government to keep up the present law against assisted dying and supply higher funding for palliative care (News, 15 July 2022). “This is about offering compassion and direct support for the terminally sick, to make sure the very best possible standard of look after all,” she said.
In a press release, the Roman Catholic lead bishop for all times issues, the Rt Revd John Sherrington, an auxiliary bishop within the archdiocese of Westminster, welcomed the committee’s decision “to not recommend the legalisation of assisted suicide”.
He continued: “As highlighted within the Committee’s report, experts have noted that there have been major problems in safeguarding the vulnerable and people without full mental capability when assisted suicide and/or euthanasia has been introduced in other jurisdictions.
“Recognising the distress and suffering of those that are sick and vulnerable, I welcome the Committee’s advice that the accessibility and provision of palliative and end of life care must be improved — something the Catholic Church has consistently called for.”
In December, Leader of the Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, said that there have been “grounds for changing the law”, and pledged to provide Labour MPs a free vote on it (News, 26 January). He said that it might be “appropriate” for it to be handled in a Private Member’s Bill quite than a government one.
The campaign group Dignity in Dying reported last week that the Prime Minister had told a campaigner for assisted dying, Matt Ryan, during a gathering in Downing Street: “What the Government has all the time said, and I’d commit to this after all, is that if Parliament decided that it wanted to alter the law then after all the Government would facilitate doing that in a way that was legally effective.”
A separate statement from Dignity in Dying, responding to the committee’s report, said that evidence to the inquiry had shown “that palliative care is unable to alleviate all suffering, with expert witnesses from the hospice sector declaring it might be ‘smug’ to say otherwise. The inquiry heard evidence that the legalisation of assisted dying has brought improvements to end-of-life care in jurisdictions overseas, with no evidence found that such care deteriorates following law change.”
