Matthew Reed, Chief Executive of Marie Curie, said:
"Marie Curie remains neutral on the matter of assisted dying, but what we are absolutely not neutral on is the need to urgently fix end of life care. In recent weeks, many MPs have acknowledged the importance of palliative care. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care himself has even said that existing palliative care isn't good enough.
"But warm words won't fix our broken end of life care system. The bill says nothing about the urgent need to improve existing provision. It says nothing about the postcode lottery for access to end of life care, nothing about the funding crisis, and nothing about people spending their final moments in A&E because our health system can't offer them the care and support they need, in or out of hours.
"Nine out of ten people would benefit from palliative care, but far too many miss out, genuine choice at the end of life cannot exist unless dying people are able to access high quality palliative and end of life care, when and where they need it.
"As this Bill progresses, we will be encouraging Parliamentarians to amend the Bill to ensure that it sets out the improvements that must be made to our palliative care system"