Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to ensure consistency in the way chief coroners record deaths where the cause is covid-19 acquired in a hospital.

The circumstances in which a medical practitioner must notify a death to the coroner are set out in the Notification of Death Regulations 2019. It is a judicial decision of the coroner as to whether they have a duty under section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to investigate a death referred to them.

Medical practitioners are expected to state the cause of death to the best of their knowledge and belief on the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD). Revised guidance published by the General Register Office and the Office for National Statistics to medical practitioners completing MCCD during the period of the pandemic confirms that COVID-19 is an acceptable direct or underlying cause of death for the purposes of completing the MCCD. This guidance also confirms that COVID-19 is not a reason of itself to refer a death to a coroner under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-notes-for-completing-a-medical-certificate-of-cause-of-death