'Enhanced protections' could be added to assisted dying bill

THE assisted dying Bill could have "enhanced protections" added regarding assessments of mental capacity, Parliament heard during the final debate on the legislation this year.

- ABBIE LLEWELYN and GEORGE LITHGOW

Labour peer Lord Falconer of Thornton, who is leading the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill through the House of Lords, told peers that those who are "particularly vulnerable" should have an "enhanced level of assessment".

This came after it was suggested that anyone who has been deprived of their liberty under the Mental Capacity Act (2005) in the past year should be ineligible for an assisted death.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, former president of the British Medical Association, argued that an impairment of capacity serious enough to result in a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) application should act as a "yellow flag" and an "indicator that risk may be elevated".

Labour peer and former MP Baroness Berger added: "I hope we can all agree that people whose incapacity for basic decisions is so severe that they are deprived of their liberty or have an application made for the deprivation of their liberty are the most vulnerable members of society.

"And the protection of people who lack capacity is a solemn duty. The state looks after their interests because they cannot."

Health minister Baroness Merron warned that treating those who have previously, in a different context, lacked capacity differently from those who have not may "conflict" with nondiscrimination obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).