New death certification process: welcome changes in mindset, legislation, and hopefully data analysis

I welcome the renewed emphasis on the prevention of criminal activity as well as routine clinical investigation of the cause of death in the new death certification process.1 The rhetoric around medical murders—that this “must never happen again”—needs to be accompanied by stringent action.When certification of death by doctors was developed in the 19th century ruling out foul play was emphasised. Current guidance on death registration emphasises administrative matters and the gathering of epidemiological and statistical data for public health and planning. Murder and suspected foul play by health professionals will now return to the guidance so will be at the forefront of the minds of certifying doctors.It is difficult to decide clinically whether a death is unexpected, and we may need to resort to statistical and epidemiological methods. Whether a cluster of cases of disease or deaths is greater than expected is notoriously difficult to gaugein epidemiology including in…
Read Original Article: New death certification process: welcome changes in mindset, legislation, and hopefully data analysis »