Seòmar agus comataidhean

On the basis of the offer from Liam McArthur, I am inclined not to press my amendments in this group, as they need a wee bit of work. However, I would still like the principle of them to be embedded into the bill. I do not know that those that Liam McArthur has lodged go far enough to improve the safeguards, but I will work with him ahead of stage 3 to see whether there might be some sort of compromise position. Therefore, I seek to withdraw amendment 226.

Amendment 226, by agreement, withdrawn.

Section 6—Medical practitioners’ assessments

Amendment 227 not moved.

Amendment 228 moved—[Pam Duncan-Glancy].

I am not sure what is happening. Can everybody hear me now?

Yes, thanks, convener. I apologise to you and the rest of the committee that I am not there in person for this meeting. Due to commitments with another committee, the best way to almost be in two places at once was to attend remotely, so thank you for allowing me to do that.

I will speak to amendments 226 and 233. I put on the record that, similar to the amendments that we discussed last week, these amendments have been worked up in collaboration with the Scottish Association of Social Work. The amendments are intended to strengthen the safeguards in the bill in relation to adults who might be vulnerable, lack capacity or be at risk of coercion or abuse. They do not seek to alter the principle or intention of the bill, but, rather, to ensure that any decision that is taken under the bill is fully informed and free from external pressure.

Amendment 226 would insert a new section after section 5 entitled “Indications of vulnerability”. The purpose of that new section is to ensure that,

“where a terminally ill adult makes a first declaration”,

the co-ordinating registered medical practitioner must check with the relevant local authority whether there are any indications from social work or adult protection records that the person might be vulnerable, lack capacity or be at risk of experiencing coercion or abuse.

Medical professionals are best placed to assess clinical capacity and consent, but they might not always have access to the wider social information that is held by local authorities. Local social work teams often have insight into whether an individual has previously been known to services or might have on-going vulnerabilities that are not immediately apparent in a clinical setting.

Under amendment 226, the local authority would have 48 hours to check its records and respond to the practitioner, either confirming that there were no known concerns or highlighting any matter requiring further assessment. If any concerns were raised, either by the local authority or indeed by a family member, friend or legal representative, a further assessment would have to be carried out within 14 days. Such an assessment, conducted by the relevant local authority, would make a recommendation on whether the individual could safely proceed under the bill or whether the process should be paused.

The approach draws on existing safeguarding practice established under legislation such as the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007, the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 and the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018. In essence, it would ensure that the robust frameworks that are already in place for protecting adults at risk are properly integrated into this new and sensitive process. It is not about creating unnecessary bureaucracy, but about ensuring that all appropriate checks are made before any irreversible step is taken.

Amendment 233 would complement that by requiring that, when a co-ordinating medical practitioner considered whether to approve an assisted dying request, they would have to take into account any recommendation arising from that vulnerability assessment. It would tie the safeguarding process directly into the bill’s decision-making mechanism, ensuring that the professional assessing the declaration could not simply proceed without regard to the findings of a local authority review.

Taken together, the amendments aim to give greater confidence both to the public and to practitioners that every reasonable step has been taken to identify and address vulnerability. They reflect existing good practice in health and social care and have been developed following discussion with the professional Scottish Association of Social Work, as I said at the outset. Ultimately, this is about ensuring that any decision made under the legislation is truly autonomous, informed and unpressured. I believe that these amendments provide a proportionate and constructive way of achieving that, and I hope that colleagues will consider supporting them.

Finally, I know that it is difficult for people to intervene on someone who is online, so I will be listening to the points that people make in the debate. I apologise again for being online.

I move amendment 226.

Having worked various shifts in emergency social work services, I can confirm that I do not think that this would be a particularly difficult task for them to pick up. Every weekend, the emergency social work services in local authorities pick up various requests for information on a wide spectrum of seriousness. Given the nature of the bill and what is being required, I do not think it would be difficult for an emergency social work team to check the system to see whether there were any notes of concern about an individual within that 48-hour period. Indeed, I think that social work services would be quite happy to take that on.

Obviously, if a vulnerability were noted, and we were to go into the 14-day assessment period, that would be a different matter, because it would then go back to an area team to carry out a full assessment. However, given the serious nature of the bill, I do not think that the actual process of checking the system would be too difficult a task for emergency social work services; they should be able to manage that. As I have said, having worked in those emergency services before, I know that it is quite common to get requests from police and health professionals to do checks on vulnerable adults.

I thank Jackie Dunbar for what is another really good question. What the amendment would do is ask that social work and local authority records be checked for any vulnerability. If the social work department had no concerns, or nothing had been noted, the matter would simply be referred back, and that would be the information that was given back. At that point, it would come back to the principles of the bill in relation to identifying vulnerability. It would be a check to see whether the local authority was aware of any vulnerability. If the answer was “No, we’re not aware of any vulnerability”, that information would be given back when the check was carried out.

I am sorry—what was your other question, Ms Dunbar?

There have not been any full costings done, but the principle that I have tried to reflect is that the approach should be integrated into existing systems. On the proposed duty to respond within 48 hours, every local authority has emergency social work services that would be able to do the proposed checks, even at weekends. Given the number of requests that might be made under this legislation, we do not think that it would be overly onerous on local authorities to build that approach into the systems that they already have in place for protecting vulnerable adults across Scotland.

Yes.

Good morning. Our witnesses’ evidence thus far has been really useful. I have just a couple of direct questions, given the convener’s point about time.

My first question is for Detective Superintendent Bertram. Police Scotland’s submission says—and you mentioned it earlier—that there is a gap in the legislation that affects your ability to police of off-street criminal sexual exploitation. Would the bill fill that gap?

What do you think, Liliana?

Thank you.