Member

Amendment 54, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, seeks to ensure that, where a patient has autism or a learning disability, the approved clinician, having applied the clinical checklist, must secure the agreement of two professional clinicians before any treatment could be given which departs from the patient’s preference, as expressed by either the patient’s nominated person or the patient’s advance choice document. While we recognise that this amendment may help ensure that preferences are more central to clinical decision-making, we do not feel that this additional safeguard is necessary on top of the protections already introduced by the Bill. For example, the clinical checklist and the new rules that limit the use of compulsory treatment and require the earlier involvement of a second opinion appointed doctor achieve a similar objective. Furthermore, sometimes a patient’s preferences, or those of their nominated person, may not be clinically appropriate or practically achievable. In that situation, the amendment would create a new burden on staff, with little benefit in return. Therefore, we feel it would be better to rely on the discretion of the treating clinician in this circumstance.