Death Certification Test Site Evaluation

Footnotes

1. Other interested parties including bereaved families will also have the right to request a review.

2. http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/category/policy-areas/nhs/resources-for-managers/death_certification/

3. We interviewed as many people involved in the reviews as possible, unless they had moved on to another post and we could not contact them or if they did not return our calls.

4. This includes 21 reviews from Dundee that the Dumfries & Galloway MR completed. Nineteen of these were referred while the Dundee MR was on leave and two involved the Dundee MR's husband (who is a GP), so the Dumfries & Galloway MR undertook these to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

This also includes six cases which were referred to the MR but had previously been referred to the Procurator Fiscal.

5. By this time Dumfries & Galloway had exceeded its target for level 1 reviews and had stopped receiving referrals for these.

6. Carried out by NHS ISD.

7. That is, where MCCDs were given the highest possible rating ('five' in the old quality scorecard or 'non-referral appropriate' in the new scorecard).

8. This includes time spent organising access to the medical records (for level 2 reviews), reviewing the records (for level 2 reviews), trying to contact doctors, talking to doctors, and completing the MR form for ISD at the end of the review.

10. The NHS internal mail service played an important part in the Dumfries & Galloway test site in delivering medical records to the MR, but currently the internal mail service in Dumfries & Galloway does not cross health board boundaries. This could be an issue if MRs are expected to cover more than one health board area when the process is implemented nationally.