MPs have voted in support of a bill that would allow medically assisted dying for adults in the last six months of life in England and Wales.

Some 330 MPs voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a majority of 55 over the 275 who voted against.

The bill will now continue to undergo parliamentary scrutiny with the support of the elected chamber. It will still have several steps to go through before any potential changes to the law come into force.

In its current form, the bill sets out various safeguards for those who want to seek assistance to end their own life, including that patients must be 18, a resident of England or Wales with mental capacity to make the choice on assisted dying, and expected to die within six months.

And a motion was passed to allow the public bill committee for the bill to take evidence - as government bills committees already do, but private members’ bills (as this is) generally do not.

The debate has split opinion among MPs – including those who are from a pharmacy background.

Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee and Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran was among those who voted in favour of the bill today.

She told parliament that she was doing so because she wanted ‘this conversation to continue’.

She acknowledged concerns by some MPs around the specifics of the bill, but reminded colleagues that this was just the second reading and that if in future they were still against it, they could vote in that manner.

‘The question I think we and I will be answering today is, do I want to keep talking about the issues in this bill? Do I want to keep grappling with the detail until I get to third reading, where I might reserve the right to at that point, vote, “no”. You can decide the question for yourself.’

But she noted that palliative care services are ‘not good enough’, adding: ‘We must do better.’

Also among those voting for the bill was pharmacist and Labour MP for North Somerset, Sadik Al-Hassan.

Writing to constituents in the North Somerset Times, he said that the bill was 'not about our individual views' but about 'giving everyone the freedom of choice on this deeply personal matter'.

'That is what I see as the difference between law and faith, law tells us what we can or cannot do as a society but faith helps us choose what is acceptable to us of the options society lays out,' he wrote.

And he said that as a pharmacist, he had 'witnessed first-hand patients go through unbearable suffering'.

He added that he had seen patients' family and friends returning medicines to the pharmacy in 'turmoil' after experiencing 'loved ones dying in unwelcome pain and distress'.

But another pharmacist in parliament, Labour MP for Coventry North West Taiwo Owatemi, cited her healthcare experience as reasons to vote against the motion.

She said she had not taken the decision about which way to vote 'lightly', having worked with patients at the end of life as an NHS cancer pharmacist.

But she said she did not think the UK healthcare system was 'ready for the introduction of this legislation'.

'I believe that it will place not only an administrative and practical burden on our medical and healthcare professionals, but also an ethical one. Our medical professionals are already under a lot of pressure, and I am concerned that sufficient time will not be given to deciding which patients qualify for an assisted death,' Ms Owatemi wrote in a statement shared on X.

And she shared concerns that 'the introduction of assisted dying will divert attention away from the improvements that mental health services and palliative care in this country desperately need'.

Ms Owatemi also said that she had been influenced by research into assisted dying in Portland, Oregon, where as a pharmacist, she 'found the lack of information available around the medication used for assisted dying and the lack of safeguarding around medication disposal deeply unsettling'.

She also flagged concerns 'about the way in which this legislation could affect the most vulnerable people in the UK - including the elderly, those living with disabilities or mental illnesses, and those from lower economic backgrounds'.

'These people deserve to know they will have access to the care and treatment they need to live well, rather than feel that assisted dying is their best option,' she wrote.

'I believe that until we address these challenges and engage in a wider dialogue about the quality of end-of-life care in the UK, assisted dying should not be introduced.'

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has previously spoken out about a similar assisted dying bill proposed in Scotland, saying that pharmacists must be able to conscientiously object to taking part, including in the preparing, dispensing and supplying of medication.

Parts of this article first appeared on our sister title Nursing in Practice.