Smokescreens - Part 4

Death yes, by: well, maybe, perhaps….

In our fourth post, we will try and answer the questions on the attribution of deaths:

“How do you decide that someone died of the F word and not, say, of a myocardial infarction or infection with Mycoplasma Pneumoniae (not a virus, but an equally nasty customer)?

If the F word plays a role in a death, how exactly do you attribute that role?

Is it the F word that kicks off the sequence of events leading to a demise, or does the F word play a relatively minor role? Is it a bystander?”

The central question in this case is how causes of death are recorded and attributed.

In England and Wales, the current Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) is set out in two parts:

Part 1. The immediate, direct cause of death is reported on the certificate. The medical practitioner should go back through the sequence of events or conditions that led to death on subsequent lines until reaching the one that started the fatal sequence. The condition on the lowest completed line of part I will have caused …