The BHA has submitted written evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sports Committee on the Scottish Palliative Care Bill. The Bill aims to place a specific statutory duty upon Scottish Ministers to provide palliative care (treatment which aims to control symptoms relating to a life-limiting condition which cannot be cured) and requires that the Ministers report annually to Parliament on a range of indicators relating to palliative care. The current situation means that Ministers have a duty of care in certain circumstances but palliative care is not specifically mentioned in legislation.
Pepper Harow, Campaigns Officer, stated, ‘The BHA’s submission to the committee focuses on our concerns about certain aspects of the Bill. For example, the duty involves reporting on the ‘spiritual’ care which is offered to patients, yet there is no definition of this term. The risk is that this will be read as ‘religious’ and the needs of non-religious patients will be overlooked.
‘We are also concerned that any discussion of end of life care involves people being given full information and choices about their treatment and that the need for a holistic approach to the issue, which may include discussion about treatments which hasten death, is not ignored.’
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You can read the BHA’s submission here.
For more information or comment please contact Naomi Phillips, Naomi@humanists.uk 020 7079 3585
The British Humanist Association is the national charity representing and supporting the interests of ethically concerned, non-religious people in the UK. It is the largest organisation in the UK campaigning for an end to religious privilege and to discrimination based on religion or belief, and for a secular state.