When Baroness Ilora Finlay Of Llandaff was six, her father was diagnosed with a life threatening illness while in his late thirties. It was, she explains, “the same disease that Hugh Gaitskell, the former leader of the Labour Party, died of” – pleurisy and pericarditis. “He was at death’s door”, she says. But Finlay’s father survived, outliving his bleak diagnosis before eventually succumbing to a brain tumour more than 30 years later.
Now, as Labour MP Kim Leadbeater introduces a new private member’s bill on assisted dying into the House of Commons, Baroness Finlay says “terminal” is a problematic word. “There is no clear definition for terminal illness”, says the peer, who worked as a palliative care consultant for nearly 40 years. “Saying someone has a prognosis of six months is impossible, a year is even more impossible. I’ve had people who I thought were going to die really soon, and I met them in Marks and Spencers many months later.”