Why palliative care is my number one priority - Miles Briggs
The last parliament session ended with one of the most impassioned and emotional votes Holyrood has ever seen.
The assisted dying bill was narrowly rejected by MSPs, but it dominated proceedings for months, sparking unlikely unions and some of the best speeches the parliament has experienced.
The make-up of the chamber may have changed since that late-night vote in March, but the importance of the matters at hand are equally pressing.
There is little appetite to revisit assisted dying as a legislative proposition among politicians and the public, but it doesn’t mean we can’t use it to force change elsewhere.
That’s why I will be prioritising the issue of palliative care as a number one priority when I return alongside my 128 colleagues next month.
It has long been an under-resourced issue, often seen as unfashionable politically, or too difficult and expensive to properly change.
But the complexities and energy of the assisted dying discussions should be a launchpad for palliative care going forward.
In fact, the shortcomings in palliative care – which are evident right across the UK – were a central reason many MSPs opposed Liam McArthur’s bill.
People like me, who were sympathetic in principle to the concept, just couldn’t square approving it while end-of-life care in Scotland remained so poor.
This also presents a chance for the whole Scottish Parliament to reach a consensus on at least something without being too political about it.
When we return, one of the first acts for the SNP will be their programme for government, which sets out the intentions and directions for the administration over the next year.
Commitments to turning around palliative care must be a central plank.
Nobody is pretending this isn’t a challenging prospect, especially when money is tight and Scotland’s population rapidly ages.
When I began work on a palliative care bill for Scotland in the last term, I had a number of positive discussions with SNP ministers about a way forward.
We agreed on many areas such as minimum standards which should be in place, regional equality, and the scale of funding required.
And we struck a chord on community-based care, workforce planning and the earlier identification of palliative care needs.
So the signs are good, and I think we can all agree that the themes from the assisted dying debate – that too many people die miserably and in pain – can be applied to the palliative care agenda too.
Parliament may be divided along a number of lines, and reaching widespread agreement on anything will be a challenge.
But I’m hopeful palliative care will be one topic that breaks that particular mold.