Cause of death

The cause of death is usually required as a sequence of events, with timings. This is provided by the doctor or pathologist providing the certificate. The information is provided to the registrar in the following form:

And this is transcribed, in a simpler form without the timings, onto the death certificate that the deceased’s relatives receive. The full medical information is then forwarded to the national statistical office where the cause of death is coded for official statistics.

Let’s run through the information on the next page.