Dr. Louise Campbell:

That is a fantastic question as well. As Senator Hoey suggested, we do not live in an optimal world but just because we do not live in an optimal world that should not mean we deny certain people, under certain circumstances, opportunities to die a better death on their terms, when we have the opportunity to enable that, as they would otherwise have to endure suffering. That is one point.

We talk about societal mores and shifts. One thing the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 and proposals to legalise assisted dying have in common is that they highlight the importance of autonomy. They highlight the importance of the person's values in enabling them to make a decision which is then respected by healthcare practitioners if they have capacity to make that decision and if they make it voluntarily. It is probably trickier to ensure the voluntariness criterion is met than it is the capacity criterion. I would imagine there will be no method of screening that would be completely fail-safe. However, we could say that in any human endeavour, and I do not mean that facetiously.

If healthcare practitioners assessing capacity and voluntariness can be trained specifically within specific parameters to watch out for red flags under those two headings, and those two headings can be kept separate because they are actually separate, although they dovetail in other ways, and to do due diligence as part of the safeguarding process, we can achieve better results or better outcomes both in enabling people who need this intervention to avail of it and protecting those who are vulnerable or made more vulnerable if they were to be allowed to avail of it. I do not know if that answers the question. I do not think there is a foolproof solution but training and experience over time will allow healthcare professionals to spot and identify undue influence where it is detectable. It is not always going to be detectable and that is the fallibility of any human system. I hope that answers the Senator's question.