As a doctor, I say this: before we even consider assisted dying, fix how we care for the most vulnerable | Zubir Ahmed

A person’s wish to die can be shaped by whether they have access to proper palliative care – and in England and Wales, too many do not Zubir Ahmed is a transplant surgeon and former Labour minister As a doctor, I have spent much of my professional life caring for people at some of the most vulnerable moments they will ever face. I have seen the anxiety that surrounds the prospect of dying, and the desperate wish of patients and families to avoid unnecessary suffering. Naturally, we all want people facing the end of life to be treated with kindness and respect. But when considering the debate on assisted dying, true compassion demands that we ask a more fundamental question. What kind of society are we building if, before we’ve fixed the systems designed to care for people, we introduce a system designed to help them die? As a former health minister who has seen the system from the inside, I am able to say it is not ready or equipped to answer this question. Andy Burnham has been right to raise this as a priority issue at the start of his tenure as prime minister. Speaking at a care home recently, he explained that assisted dying should not be introduced while Britain’s palliative c