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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Managing sudden death in hospital | | Author(s) | Paul J Frost, Stephen Leadbeatter, Matt P Wise |
| Journal title | British Medical Journal, vol 340, no 7754, 8 May 2010 |
| Pages | pp 1024-1028 |
| Source | www.bmj.com doi: 10.1136/bmj.c962 |
| Keywords | Death ; Bereavement ; The Family ; Attitude ; Doctors ; Hospital services. |
| Annotation | Junior doctors play an important role in verifying sudden deaths in hospital and communicating with the family of the deceased. This article includes some case scenarios illustrative of how best to manage a sudden death; the circumstances in which a death should be referred to the coroner; and the questions to be considered in completing a medical certificate of cause of death. The authors comment that while the Liverpool care pathway generally provides a framework for managing end of life care, it cannot be used fully for unexpected hospital deaths. The broader point of this article is that junior doctors have reported insufficient training in how to break bad news; and that even more experienced clinicians are not always confident in their ability to inform families of a sudden death. This article covers England and Wales; the situation in Northern Ireland differs in some respects. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-100511204 A |
| Classmark | CW: DW: SJ: DP: QT2: LD * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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