EXCLUSIVE

 
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has drafted plans for Scottish pharmacists to assist with suicides if these are legalised, C+D has learned.

The Scottish government is currently reviewing a bill to legally allow someone to assist with a suicide in “certain circumstances”. If the bill was passed, the RPS would construct a database of individuals who were trained and willing to participate, said a spokesperson for Patrick Harvie, the MSP in charge of the bill.

Pharmacists who "opted in" would have access to "all relevant patient records" to ensure the "clinical appropriateness of the [suicide] request", the spokesperson said. "[They] would be included in the planning process to ensure safe and timely dispensing of any prescriptions as well as assurance that all legal requirements had been fulfilled,” he told C+D last week (January 14).

RPS president Ash Soni told C+D that pharmacists would make a “conscious decision” about whether they wanted to be involved and the RPS would produce guidance to support them.

“We have to respect the wishes of those who are affected and also support the law. We have to make sure that it is done in a way which is as dignified as it can be for the person concerned,” he added.

The spokesperson for Mr Harvie said the patient would be able to choose which pharmacist was involved. The pharmacist - who could be from the community sector - would then place a “special order” for the drugs, which would “not be routinely available”, he said.

Once the drugs were received, the pharmacist would work closely with the patient, their medical practitioner and the “facilitator” of the suicide, the spokesperson said. If the drug was not used, the facilitator would return it to the pharmacy that had dispensed it, the spokesperson stressed.

The Assisted Suicide Bill for Scotland was introduced in 2013 and evidence is being considered by the government’s Health and Sport Committee this month. Once it had finished taking evidence in February, the committee would draft a report that MSPs were likely to vote on just after Easter, the spokesperson added. 

If the bill was passed, the law would apply only to patients with a "terminal or life-shortening" condition or illness. The request for assisted suicide must be endorsed by two medical practitioners and the patient must have made an initial declaration and two formal requests, allowing two weeks in between for them to "reflect on the consequences and conclude that the quality of life is unacceptable".
 

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