Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Baroness Lawlor

Committee stage
Friday 6th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to provide some information to the Committee which I think supports these amendments quite well. Care England, which has 122 care providers, consulted its care providers some weeks ago. It found that:

“84% have not been consulted on the Bill or its implications. 24% said staffing would become very difficult due to conscientious objections, with a further 16% expressing similar concerns. Only 14% reported staff being willing to participate in the whole procedure … Only 13% said they could manage assisted dying in their Homes. Only 27% reported 24/7 access to specialist palliative care support on site”.


This demonstrates that the care home sector itself has been very worried about how it would cope with this. Sadly, it also demonstrates just why not having specialist palliative care in scope on this Bill has created quite so many problems.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 111 in the name of my noble friend Lady Eaton. This would require a higher bar for proving capacity in care homes and nursing homes. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has already referred to the data: the evidence of higher cognitive impairment in 70% of care homes, the failure of MCA assessments in 15% to 25% of them, and the incidence of dementia. I will not recount the other data; I have cut it out of my speech.

There is also the very mixed picture we get of care homes and nursing homes. One example was a recent—well, not that recent—undercover BBC programme about Whorlton Hall in County Durham, a hospital for patients with learning disabilities and autism. The evidence was shocking. It was described by specialists in the subject as amounting to psychological torture.

Apart from the problems that we have in care homes with giving patients the ability to use capacity because of all the counterfactuals that exist and the impossibility of accurately establishing capacity, I reflect on the potential harm resulting from another factor, a danger we should bear in mind—that from the state. Officials bureaucratise a system in a way that endangers the frail and the elderly and, under this Bill, particularly endangers care home residents, some of whom have been misdiagnosed as having capacity when they do not, and go on a path to suicide. We have already heard mention of the Liverpool care pathway in that connection.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Baroness Lawlor

Committee stage
Friday 23rd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

Is it the noble Baroness’s understanding of Clause 12(2)(d) that, while there is an obligation to discuss the person’s wishes in the event of complications arising, there is no obligation to discuss exactly what those complications could be?

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

It might be helpful to add that, in normal procedure, you would explain to a patient what the complications may be but also what you will do. This Bill does not say what you will do. That is why I pointed out that somebody who is very drowsy and beginning to wake from a huge dose of lethal drugs would not be able to self-administer a further dose. This Bill is very clear that the practitioner does not administer the fatal dose; it must be done by the person themselves. Therefore, we have a bit of a gap here, because the doctor can tell them what might happen, but it does not seem that the doctor can tell them what they will do in the event of it happening and how it would be managed.