One in every 16 death certificates issued in Dundee has mistakes, a study has found.
Doctors have listed incorrect or incomplete causes of death, got the sequence of events leading up to a death muddled and in some cases even got the name of the deceased wrong.
The errors have been uncovered during a pilot project run in the city ahead of the launch next year of a national system of independent medical reviews of death certificates.
This will see a random sample of certificates referred by registrars to a medical reviewer, who will check them for quality and accuracy. The Dundee pilot ran from May 2012 to February 2013.
A total of 505 certificates were subjected to a basic check, including a conversation with the issuing doctor, while another 69 were given a more comprehensive examination that saw the reviewer check the deceased’s medical records.
Of that total of 574 investigations, 36 certificates were found to be wrong, with some containing several errors or omissions.Mistakes included the cause of death being wrong or too vague, conditions either being omitted or recorded when they should not have been and the sequence of the cause of death being wrong or illogical.
Some certificates had the time and date of death wrong or missing or the location of the death missing and some even had the deceased’s personal details including their name wrong or omitted.
Some doctors forgot to include their own name or address or their medical qualifications.
A Scottish Government report said: “The vast majority of reviews found medical cause of death certificates (MCCDs) to be in order, but there are some examples where reviews highlighted areas that doctors may require some guidance on.
“The benefits identified through the test site process are that it provides a good opportunity to support and educate doctors about the importance of completing death certificates accurately.”
Once the system comes into force next April, medical reviewers across Scotland will be expected to check the accuracy of as many as a quarter of all death certificates.
The Scottish Government report said it would be important for doctors and funeral directors to warn families this might happen. Reviews will have to be completed before a death is fully certified, so any delays in the process could results in funerals being postponed.
A spokesperson for the British Medical Association in Scotland said: “The new death certification system is designed to help improve the accuracy of death certification.
“Because the new system has a high level of scrutiny, it is much more likely that potential inaccuracy will be identified and corrected.”