Families face £100 ‘death tax’ to pay for checks on doctors
BEREAVED families face paying a ‘death tax’ to finance new checks to detect medical malpractice and even murders such as those by doctor Harold Shipman, critics say.
The fee of around £100 will add to spiralling funeral costs, which now average £4,000 – double the figure a decade ago.
The money is being used to fund a system of ‘medical examiners’ who will doublecheck causes of death before bodies can be released for burial or cremation. The NHS says the reform will provide ‘independent scrutiny on the accuracy and completeness’ of the certified cause of death. It is aimed at deterring ‘crime and malpractice’ while also detecting poor practice in hospitals.
GP Shipman is believed to have murdered 250 patients before he was apprehended in 1998. He was convicted of 15 counts of murder and later hanged himself in jail.
But Labour MP Frank Field, chairman of the Commons work and pensions select committee, said the new plans ‘will put the over-inflated cost of a basic, decent funeral even further out of reach of poorer families’. According to a Freedom of Information request by ITV News, over the past three years there has been a 70 per cent rise in the number of ‘pauper’s funerals’, paid for by local councils when families have insufficient funds to cover the cost.
Of the 490,791 deaths registered in England in 2016, only 90,404 were investigated by a post-mortem examination or inquest.
Under the new proposals, 408 medical examiners will be appointed and a total of 1,086 officials will operate in every hospital to check deaths not referred for post-mortem examination or to the coroner. This will involve looking at the deceased’s medical records, discussing the case with relatives and the doctor who gave the cause of death – and possibly externally examining the body.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘When something goes tragically wrong in healthcare, the best apology to grieving families is to guarantee that no one will experience that same heartache again.’