At last today the signed medical certificate has arrived at the registrar. My mum died 9 days ago on April 2nd.
We have been unable to register the death so far. Tomorrow at last we can do so. By law deaths are supposed to be registered within 5 days but through no fault our ours this was not possible. Due to the Easter 4 day weekend we would have had to register by the Thursday. This certainly should have been possible.
Doctors I am afraid are to blame.
The Dr who saw my mum in the hospital didn't feel qualified to sign the death certificate as he hadn't seen mum for long and couldn't be sure of the cause of death.
The GP was therefore asked to do this. As she died in the early hours of Sunday nothing was going to happen before Monday.
Mum's GP agreed to put Infirmity and Old age as the cause of death. He didn't want to put her and us through a post mortem to pinpoint an exact cause. It wasn't an unexpected or suspicious death and the hospital Dr should have signed.
Plain sailing from now on you would have expected?
The named GP had in fact never met mum, so asked the Dr who had seen her a couple of weeks earlier for a chest infection to do it.
Here the blunders and confusion lie. To cut a long story short although we were told on more than one occasion the certificate should be with the registrar before Easter it wasn't.
Something to do with the Dr signing before he had seen mum's body then having to go back and re do it. The main GP phoned me full of apologies just before the Easter break to assure me that it would be correctly signed and electronically delivered to the registrar today. He advised us to make an appointment with the registrar. However they said Sorry we have been promised it before and it didn't arrive. No appointment until we have the certificate.
Thank goodness it was finally sent over today and the registrar phoned to say they had it and we made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. The final funeral plans can't be done without the green form from the registrar so we have an appointment with him tomorrow afternoon too. Hopefully seeing the vicar as well, but that's not a problem if not.
This has all been needlessly stressful. A bit like the sale of my mums bungalow!
We have been unable to register the death so far. Tomorrow at last we can do so. By law deaths are supposed to be registered within 5 days but through no fault our ours this was not possible. Due to the Easter 4 day weekend we would have had to register by the Thursday. This certainly should have been possible.
Doctors I am afraid are to blame.
The Dr who saw my mum in the hospital didn't feel qualified to sign the death certificate as he hadn't seen mum for long and couldn't be sure of the cause of death.
The GP was therefore asked to do this. As she died in the early hours of Sunday nothing was going to happen before Monday.
Mum's GP agreed to put Infirmity and Old age as the cause of death. He didn't want to put her and us through a post mortem to pinpoint an exact cause. It wasn't an unexpected or suspicious death and the hospital Dr should have signed.
Plain sailing from now on you would have expected?
The named GP had in fact never met mum, so asked the Dr who had seen her a couple of weeks earlier for a chest infection to do it.
Here the blunders and confusion lie. To cut a long story short although we were told on more than one occasion the certificate should be with the registrar before Easter it wasn't.
Something to do with the Dr signing before he had seen mum's body then having to go back and re do it. The main GP phoned me full of apologies just before the Easter break to assure me that it would be correctly signed and electronically delivered to the registrar today. He advised us to make an appointment with the registrar. However they said Sorry we have been promised it before and it didn't arrive. No appointment until we have the certificate.
Thank goodness it was finally sent over today and the registrar phoned to say they had it and we made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. The final funeral plans can't be done without the green form from the registrar so we have an appointment with him tomorrow afternoon too. Hopefully seeing the vicar as well, but that's not a problem if not.
This has all been needlessly stressful. A bit like the sale of my mums bungalow!
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