Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the average time taken for deaths to be reviewed under the national medical examiner system since 9 September 2024; and if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the time taken for deaths to be reviewed on the time taken to arrange funerals.

The Government is monitoring the impact of the death certification reforms, which came into legal effect on 9 September 2024. The median time taken to register a death since the introduction of the statutory medical examiner system in England and Wales is eight days. This figure is for all deaths, as it includes those certified by a doctor and those investigated by a coroner. The median time taken to register a death varies depending on the type of certification. Deaths certified by a doctor, that comprise approximately 80% of deaths registered each week, had a median time to registration of seven days. The Department has not conducted a separate review of the time taken to arrange funerals, which can depend on a number of external factors.

The core purposes of the death certification reforms are to introduce scrutiny of the cause of death to detect and deter malpractice, to improve reporting, and crucially to put the bereaved at the centre of the process by offering a conversation with the medical examiner about the cause of death. The expectation on doctors and medical examiners is clear, that they should complete certification as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the Department is working with all stakeholders to make sure this is the case.