Crisis in cremation

BMJ 1999;318:811 ( 20 March )

Letters

Crisis in cremation

Poor form filling makes medical referees essential

Cremation form should be abolished

May have been created to increase fees

Poor form filling makes medical referees essential

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ I was one of the medical referees who received and completed Horner's questionnaire on cremation forms as part of theBMA survey in June 1997.¹ I was interested to learn that only21% of cremation certificates presented to Horner were complete,and this prompted me to survey the forms presented to me inChesterfield.

From September 1997 I looked at 1000 consecutive sets of papers presented to me for authorisation of cremation. At the sametime as starting the survey I produced a handout giving guidanceon how to complete certificates B (completed by the attendingdoctor) and C (confirmatory certificate from independent doctorof 5 years' standing), which was distributed to all junior doctorsat Chesterfield and North Derbyshire Royal Hospital. The tableshows the papers received and numbers requiring intervention.Ninety seven forms had incomplete or incorrect details of name,address, or age; 64 had incomplete or incorrect details of . . . [Full text of this article]