Most of my patients are not Esther Rantzens. They are ordinary people of limited means. Almost every working day I have a conversation with a terminally ill patient where the worries they raise are not physical symptoms, but practical concerns about finances, how they will pay

🚨 NC16 has been defeated. 261 v 208 If you meet the criteria, you will be given help to end your life even if it is because you feel you are a burden, are under financial pressure, are depressed, in insecure housing or cannot access the services you need.

Vicky Foxcroft, fresh from resigning as a whip over disability cuts, says the “absence of disabled people’s voices has been astonishing”

The Terminally Ill Adults Bill has lost its absolute majority in the Commons (they got 314, and it's 318 for absolute majority) And their lead has been cut by more than half Not a bad result The fight continues

V disappointing to see MPs vote for the assisted dying bill at third reading. Shows a failure to take the risks it poses to vulnerable people seriously. A wafer thin majority for a piece of legislation that could see people wrongly assisted to kill themselves by the state though.

Why did Ed Davey abstain? votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons/…

Lord Shinkwin - a disabled peer who is anti assisted dying - says he was in intensive care recently & would have felt under pressure to say yes to assisted dying if law existed. “I would have felt under real pressure to do that, and I dont want people to feel under pressure.”

Mistruth 1: "The bill contained rigorous safeguards, the most rigorous in the world." But MPs voted against many amendments that tried to make the bill safer, eg reversing the presumption of capacity. The much-vaulted High Court safeguard was watered down as soon as 2nd reading

My article in today’s Sunday Times The Times and The Sunday Times about how ethnic minorities are treated in an already overstretched health system and my fears that the rushed #AssistedDyingBill will exacerbate health inequalities thetimes.com/uk/politics/ar… looks like this on the page #buyApaper

I don't give a toss about what Esther Rantzen thinks - why is every media outlet (not just the celeb-obsessed tabloids like the Daily Express) giving her this degree of prominence? It's extradodinary. Hard not to see this as part of a nudge unit campaign....

And, of course, around 90% of all foetuses with Downs Syndrome are already screened out at birth (also in the name of compassion) - this number has significantly increased since the pandemic.

Feels like we’re gonna hear a lot about ‘COBRA’…so let’s do a little bedtime explainer 🧵

Oh ho! I doubt peers will respond very well anyway to Lord Falconer telling them what they can and cannot do. If the Lords cannot say 'no', they wouldn't have second and third reading stages.

I am no fan of Reeves politically, but I thought at the time her tears were fairly obviously for personal reasons and felt the press pack ought to have held back before speculating. I don’t know why Reeves chose to come to the Chamber but perhaps she felt that given the intensity

Since these designs were introduced in the pandemic, the evidence has grown that floating bus stops are terrible for those with mobility needs and visual impairments. As someone with both, I have experienced this a few times myself when I have almost been knocked down. These

National FitBit Service. Call me jaded but this does have Yes Minister / Thick of It vibes. Hard not to see lobbying from the likes of Apple behind this….