The report found that: * One in four autopsy reports was poor or unacceptable. In 2005, 22% (114,600) of the 513,000 people who died in England and Wales, were examined after death through a coronial autopsy. The NCEPOD reviewed data collected from seven days in May 2005 for England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Suspected murder cases were excluded but in all, 1,691 cases were reviewed, made up of 979 men (58%) and 712 (42%) women, with ages from three days to 101 years. The report referred to autopsies ordered by coroners for those who die outside a hospital setting, including in some care homes.
"Indeed it is unlikely that the public would be aware of what constituted an autopsy of good quality." The NCEPOD said several pathologists had said the £87.70 fee for a standard autopsy without further investigations undervalued post-mortem examinations and put time pressure on pathologists. "The fact that there is no outcry is a manifestation of the fact that families are unaware of the variable quality of the autopsy procedure. It also found evidence that elderly patients were not examined as closely as younger patients and that some autopsies were speeded up. The report, The Coroner's Autopsy: Do We Deserve Better?, which followed a proposal from the Royal College of Pathologists said: "If one quarter of all surgical procedures undertaken on the living were deemed, by peers, to be poorly or unacceptably done, there would be a public outcry.
In one third of mortuaries, the pathologist did not always inspect the exterior of the body before it was opened up and the organs removed, the report said. The NCEPOD operates under the umbrella of the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), but is a confidential, independent enquiry. A quarter of post-mortem examinations performed on the request of a coroner are poor or unacceptable, according to a report out today. The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD), which carried out the study, found that 26% were unacceptable, 52% were satisfactory and just 23% were good or excellent. It also found that the cause of death registered by pathologists was "questionable" in about a fifth of all cases. "Ensuring adequate sleep in children and adolescents may not only help fighting against obesity, but could have other added health and educational benefits - for example improvements in academic performance," he said.. The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children in the UK found in the 1990s that insufficient sleep at 30 months predicted obesity at age seven.
