Doctor tells widow to film body on Zoom for death note

GP is accused of being discompassionate and flouting NHS rules by not visiting home of deceased

AN ELDERLY widow was forced to help certify her husband’s death via video call after a GP said they “don’t come out anymore”.

The patient, who was 80-years-old and had been dying from cancer, passed away at home shortly after 4pm on a weekday earlier this month.

His wife, who had been caring for him at home, immediately called her GP and was told the doctor would “be in touch shortly”.

But when the GP phoned back more than one-and-a-half hours later he said he would not be coming to the house.

Moira Evans, the widow’s friend who was there at the time, said: “He then sent a link to a video chat… [and said] ‘hold the camera to the dead body’.

“My friend at this point said ‘I can’t, can you do it please Moira?’, and so I did it.”

The GP explained “they don’t come out anymore to certify death, that you have to do it yourself on a smartphone,” Mrs Evans claimed.

Temporary measures for completing medical certificates of cause of death during the pandemic were lifted in March this year.

The current official requirements, set by HM Passport Office, state: “Seeing the deceased after death (ie viewing the body) will need to be in person and includes verifying the death.”

An NHS spokesman said: “Verification of death should be carried out in person by a qualified health professional in a sensitive and compassionate manner.”

The case comes after some patients have struggled to access surgeries since the start of the pandemic, with some practices still restricting patients from having face-to-face appointments.

The latest official figures show about 65 per cent of appointments were held in-person in July, the highest proportion since March 2020 (66 per cent).

However, the figure is still well below the pre-pandemic average of about 80 per cent.

Dennis Reed, of the campaign group Silver Voices, set up to mobilise the political voice of the older generation, said it was “absolutely staggering” that a vulnerable person was asked to video their deceased husband.

“I wonder how accurate you know, these sorts of things are,” he said.

“You’re basically asking the individual to certify the death of their own partner and, in a traumatic situation, that is completely outrageous.

“What if there were some faint life signs that could be determined by somebody actually visiting?”

He said the ordeal shows “how impersonal the NHS is becoming”.

“There appears to be hardly any limits as to what has to be done virtually rather than through the personal touch,” he added.

‘You assume when sombody dies in your home, someone’s going to come out and have a tiny bit of compassion’

Mrs Evans said she was requested to hold the phone to the man’s face and the doctor then asked: “Can you hold it a bit lower so I can see his chest?”

Less than a minute later after the video call started the doctor said “OK I’ve seen enough”, she added.

He then explained they would issue the death certificate and someone from the medical centre would be in touch about when they could go and collect it.

They were then able to tell the undertaker that the GP had seen the man on video and could they come and collect the body.

“The procedure of having to do this on video, we were just gobsmacked,” Mrs Evans said.

“You just assume that when somebody dies in your home, that somebody’s going to come out and say ‘pat, pat, there, there’ and have a tiny bit of compassion in there.”