Care Homes: Death Certificates

(asked on 13th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to ensure that a medical practitioner verifies the cause of death on death certificates of people in care homes during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Nadine Dorries Portrait
Nadine Dorries
This question was answered on 18th May 2020

In response to COVID-19, the Department has published ‘CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19): Verifying Death in Times of Emergency’ guidance. This guidance is designed to clarify existing practice for the verification of death outside of hospitals and to provide a framework for safe verification of death in this COVID-19 emergency period. It is for all cases outside hospital when verification of death may be completed by people who have been trained to do so in line with their employer’s policies, including medical practitioners, registered nurses or paramedics. It is also to be exercised by other non-medical professionals, usually and normally independent of family members, who are verifying death using remote clinical support.

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