Reforming death certification

doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7564.398-b

BMJ 2006;333:398 (19 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7564.398-b

Letter

Reforming death certification

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

EDITOR—The government has cited cost and bureaucracy asreasons for not reforming death certification, as recommendedby the Luce report and by Dame Janet Smith's report into theShipman affair.¹ Both excuses ignore the recommendation in bothreports to abolish the cost and bureaucracy of the "cremationform" system.

Most deaths in the United Kingdom are followed by cremation.For every cremation, these archaic and flawed forms are completedand fees of over £100 are charged. If these forms wereabolished, could this money not be used to fund a modern deathcertification system?

The crucial difference is that fees for the cremation form arepaid by the bereaved, not the state. This proposal would abolisha stealth tax on the bereaved, and transfer the cost to theexchequer, to be funded from general taxation.

Peter N Furness, consultant histopathologist

Leicester General Hospital, Leicester LE5 4PW pnf1@le.ac.uk

Competing interests: PNF has in the past benefited financiallyfrom cremation form fees.