Professor Mary Donnelly:

Yes. The first thing to say is that although it is a 2015 Act, we are in the very early days of seeing how it operates in practice. We have limited data as to its operation in practice.

That is something we have to keep an eye on. Having an awareness of what is happening will be fundamental to any decision to legislate. We must know what is happening with that. However, we have greater clarity around certain things. We have a definition of capacity and our support mechanisms. There is a much clearer picture for us to think about how it should or should not translate into assisted dying. Were we to decide to introduce assisted dying, that does not mean it could simply translate as it is, that we could simply throw in a bit of assisted dying. That is not how it would work, but we have a greater level of clarity. As Professor Madden, I believe, pointed out, we now have measures to enable people to refuse treatment while they have capacity and measures under which people can say that they want to refuse treatment if they lose capacity. Whether we call it a culture shift or something else, these are all part of our legal culture. However, it will take a year or two at least to get a real feel for how these measures operate on the ground and how embedded they become. Certainly on paper we have a much clearer picture. They are all supplemented by detailed codes of practice provided by the Decision Support Service. There are levels of additional clarity. Again, we must watch these critically and see how they operate in practice. However, there is more clarity.