Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average time taken was to certify a death in (a) hospital and (b) the community in the period since changes were made to the death certification process in September 2024.

The Government is monitoring the impact of the death certification reforms, including the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death Regulations 2024, which came into legal effect on 9 September 2024. The median time taken to register a death since the introduction of the reforms in England and Wales has typically been 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, have typically had a median time to registration of seven days. These figures are not broken down by hospital or community setting. It is important to note that the medical examiner system was active on a non-statutory basis before the introduction of the statutory system on 9 September, and this makes direct before and after comparisons challenging to draw conclusions from.

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 Government is working with all stakeholders to make sure this is the case.