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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 12 July 2025
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Displaying 1225 contributions

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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

I have another question. Such a thing occurring would be extremely rare, but where would you stand on somebody falsifying their having a terminal illness and ending up having an assisted death?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

Would you or the Government like to see anything in the bill about how the service would operate?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

Given your previous answers, you might not be able to answer some of my other questions. However, I would like some comment about the NHS’s relationship to the potential service model should the bill become law. For example, should it be a separate service in the NHS or integrated into existing services?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

Should there be a register of people who are trained to perform assisted dying and are willing to participate in it, with a sort of opt-in system?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

This might be very stupid, but I assume that, if you had a complaint and you were an English resident with a Scottish family member, you would make the complaint in Scotland rather than in England.

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

Okay. Thank you very much.

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 28 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

I declare an interest as a practising national health service general practitioner and as chair of the medical advisory group on the bill.

I have a couple of questions, the first of which is on coercion. You mentioned what might happen after the event. How would you unpick the following scenario? Say that someone who has decided that they want to go through with an assisted death has a supportive family member, as we hope would be the case, but after the event, another family member—perhaps a distant cousin, for example—says, “I’m against the idea of assisted dying, and you’ve clearly coerced because you have been so supportive.” Would you be open to multiple complaints coming through?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 21 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

I want to ask about some evidence that we heard from the previous panel. We were told that the suicide rate among people who have terminal illnesses is 2.4 times higher than it is among the rest of the population, and that 591 people a week die in pain despite receiving the best palliative care. What is your response to those figures? What should we be doing?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 21 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

Before we move on, can I ask, for clarity, whether you think that there any circumstances at all in which it would be ethically acceptable?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 21 January 2025

Dr Sandesh Gulhane

To follow up on the stat that you just gave us about the suicide rate being 2.4 times higher for people who have a terminal illness, do you have any information on how they commit suicide?