Improving access to palliative care has been a common theme in the reaction to the bill’s defeat.
End-of-life charity Marie Curie has estimated that the need for palliative care in Scotland will rise by almost 20% by 2050, with almost 11,000 more people requiring care each year than in 2025.
The Scottish government has promised to spend £6.5m on hospices next year – but sector representatives have said this is not sustainable.
Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan, chief executive of Right To Life UK – which has campaigned against assisted dying and also opposes abortion – said it was vital that MSPs “redouble their efforts to invest in universal access to high-quality palliative care” after May’s Holyrood election.
He said: “If this legislation had passed, countless vulnerable people would have been pressured or coerced into ending their lives”.
Toby Porter, the chief executive of Hospice UK – which is neutral on assisted dying – said the debate had exposed “deep inequalities” in access to palliative care across Scotland.
He said over 60,000 people die in Scotland each year and the number of people who need palliative care is “rising rapidly” – and argued for long-term sustainable funding for hospices.
Emma Cooper, convener of Friends at the End (FATE) – who are in favour of assisted dying – said the debate had been “plagued by misinformation” and that end-of-life decisions that hasten death already happen in the NHS.
She added: “Scottish people are going to continue to suffer unnecessarily at the end of life.”