DEATH CERTIFICATON KLAXON

I lot of rumour, myth and misinformation doing the rounds from people who have never filled out a death certificate mis-representing and insulting doctors who have filled out hundreds. So can i just quickly set the record straight?

When we fill out (in UK) certificates it is

1a (cause directly leading to death)
1b 1c (causes leading/contributing to that cause

II (Other conditions the person had which didn't contribute directly but may be relevant in overall health state)

so for instance you might put

1 a Stroke
1 b Diabetes
1 c Hypertension

II Alzheimer's Dementia

We have to complete certificates to the "Best of our knowledge and belief" which means that sometimes we have to go on an overall clinical impression before all tests back
e.g. If someone has a clinical picture and x ray appearance of lung cancer but we haven't had a biopsy

There are certain cases/conditions which we have to notify to coroner/discuss with coroner's office

including violence, recent surgery, certain occupational or notifiable diseases, no one had seen patient before death

we also now have a new medical examiner of deaths system where for patients in hospital (with extension to all settings) each certificate must be discussed with a doctor given dedicated time to discuss the certificate and who is not directly involved in the case

although both the medical examiner and coronial system has had to make some adaptations during the pandemic

we also have to fill out cremation forms and have these checked by a 2nd medic.

Wilfully falsifying or altering causes of death or information on forms or certificates or being dishonest would land us in serious professional difficulties or worse

there is NO, repeat NO, conspiracy or pressure or financial incentive or penalty NONE either to

Write "Covid-19" on certificates when there was no confirmatory test

NOT write it even when test was positive or we had strong suspicions it was Covid-19.

Never, ever ever

There are likely to be some people for whom the doctors (having seen so many cases they recognise the pattern) write Covid-19 to the best of their knowledge and belief

There are likely to be other cases where they *don't* write it because there was not a test

All understable

in due course a deeper look at the data may tell us how many people had it put as "cause 1 a" with no confirmatory test or didn't have it put as "cause 1 a" even though drs suspected it strongly because they were reluctant to do so with no test

All within reasonable practice

There is NO conspiracy or pressure to force the 1000s of individual doctors who jdeath either
1. To inflate Covid death numbers (to justify lockdown)
2. To play down Covid death numbers (to save the government's reputation)

There NO "smoking gun"

Please stop this nonsense!
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