Death certificate cause of death

[asblindasabat]

My question is based on the fact the Queen’s death certificate has been released and it says the cause of death was “old age”

Obviously, that is true but I didn’t think an official record of a person’s death would record the cause using such a basic term?

I thought it would have to be the actual scientific/medical cause of death?

Just curious!

Both my MIL and mum died in their 90s. Both have old age as their cause of death.

In reality there were several things wrong with each of them, but a gentle slipping away in a warm bed doesn't need to be investigated if the person was over 95.

There had been speculation about who got there & who didn't.

Just puts that to rest-perhaps not all that interesting!

The thing that interests me is that the continuous BBC coverage about the Queen started at lunchtime before she had actually died. I rather assumed she was already dead when the coverage began and they were just waiting for clearance to announce it officially. Otherwise, as someone else said, she might have recovered or held on for days and days, and, if that had been the case, when would the BBC have said 'as you were' and gone back to ordinary schedules? But no, she really was still alive at lunchtime, but someone in the BBC took the decision to start the rolling coverage. Interesting.

@Beefilm i wondered too.

I arrived home at about 5pm that day and I put ITV news on TV and Mary Nightingale was already dressed in black and apparently they had been in black all afternoon.

If she hadn’t died until 3.10pm why were they already in black?

Also I’m wondering did the news presenters already know she had died before it became official?

My father’s stated carcinomatosis, second was kidney failure; he’d had Ca prostate for 43 years and that presumably spread and his kidneys failing finally finished his decline. He was completely active up to a couple of months before so a very quick decline.

My Mum's said "old age". She was 95 and had just worn out.

There was official confirmation at the time that only Charles and Anne were there and that William et al were too late.

It's fair enough, why insist on post mortems for elderly people whose bodies have basically worn out. I think it's a pretty good description.

One of my grandparents (92) had old age on hers, she had advanced dementia but that wasn't listed

To be sure there hasn't been foul play. Even the elderly and worn out should not be murdered.

So if someone has not been seen by a doctor in 14 days prior, the Coroner must be informed. That does not necessarily mean a PM - it can be a paper exercise depending on medical history. But every death will be checked. It's not a perfect system (Shipman) but it does reduce the scope for bumping people off

Old age is quite common to go on death certificates of very elderly people. My gran’s certificate said “old age”. She was 99. My other gran died in her 70s of “cardiac failure”.

I think the palace statement about her being under medical supervision was a rough sort of code for ‘her death is imminent’. But I did find it a bit distasteful that they immediately went to rolling coverage and black tie at that point. It was clear they were all just waiting for it to happen, which seemed a bit disrespectful really.

I’m a registrar. Old age (or frailty of old age) is a completely acceptable cause of death, as long as the deceased is over 80. It can be recorded as the sole cause of death as well as with other causes/contributing conditions.

She won’t have had a PM to be able to attribute the cause of death to something so specific.

If she was seen by a doctor in the last days of her life and they had identified that she was in the last stages, then there is no need for a PM, as it is an “expected death”. Old age or frailty is a perfectly acceptable cause of death.

This is the ONS guidance on use of "Old Age on its own". They say

"4.3 Avoid ‘old age’ alone
Old age, ‘senility’ or ‘frailty of old age’ should only be given as the sole cause of death in very limited circumstances. These are that:
• You have personally cared for the deceased over a long period (years, or many months)
• You have observed a gradual decline in your patient's general health and functioning
• You are not aware of any identifiable disease or injury that contributed to the death
• You are certain that there is no reason that the death should be reported to the coroner"

Under the Queen's circumstances where she's been under the detailed care of known doctors it seems plausible that those fairly unusual conditions have been met.

I think what's a bit unusual is the absence of any other factors in section 2. I'm not a doctor but I do know a bit about death data and I'd have thought that most people of that age have some conditions that would normally recorded under section 2 as "contributing to death but not relating to the direct cause of death". But under the circumstances I think it's reasonable to give the minimum legally acceptable detail.

They have to, though -because otherwise they would get complaints about being disrespectful if they wore normal bright colours and not informing the public - one of their mandates - so they had to cover it.