Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to mandate that fact-of-death is reported to the Office for National Statistics in England within eight days.

There is a legal responsibility to register a death within a five-day time period, from when a medical examiner submits the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD) to the registrar. The Office for National Statistics compiles their mortality data from the data taken at registration, which is informed in part by the MCCD. The five-day requirement complements the guidance to medical practitioners that certifying the death should be completed in a timely and efficient manner. However, there are valid cases where, for example, the identification of the cause of death, including where this is ascertained through a coronial investigation, and therefore the registration must take longer, which would be incompatible with a more prescriptive legal timeline.