Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure families are not penalised under the 5 day legal requirement to register a death when facing delays caused by (a) lack of appointments and (b) administrative bottlenecks.

The Department has policy and operational responsibility for the death certification process in England and Wales, which includes the medical examiner function which scrutinises all non-coronial deaths. Medical examiners and their officers are expected to complete their work without unreasonable delay and for straightforward cases this should normally be completed within 24 hours.

A death is required to be registered within five days of the medical examiner, or coroner, completing their scrutiny and submitting the required cause of death paperwork to the local register office. The General Register Office is part of the HM Passport Office and oversees the policy and legislative framework for death registration in England and Wales. The Department is unaware of any general delays across registration services in England and Wales in registering deaths.