On Wednesday 01 Sep 2004 09:06, Adrian Midgley wrote:
> > What are we to
> > do though - all refuse to sign and allow a Cremation backlog to
> > form?
>
> That seems logical.
> And until the GMC deliberations are over I think is the minimum
> prudent course of action.

Adrian, what you are suggesting as a minimum prudent course of action
strikes me as having a significant effect on patients. Moral blackmail
may be exerted to keep the crematorium fires burning.

It has a number of advantages though:
- it doesn't need consensus, anyone can do it and protect themselves
- as far as I know we have no duty (towards anyone) to sign a part 2

There would be an interesting interim situation, during which some GPs
would sign part 2s and others wouldn't. Whose responsibility is it to
find the doctor to sign part 2? By custom and practice the doctor who
signed part 1 asks a colleague whom he knows. (This is sensible if the
doctor signing part 2 knows that the first doctor is a reliable
clinician of impeccable probity - which is often but not always the
case.) But as far as I know there is no duty on the first doctor to
find a doctor to sign part 2, and that job would then fall to the
undertaker.

Suppose that all GPs in an area continue signing part 1 (no reason why
they shouldn't) but most decline to sign part 2. You would end up with
one or two doctors (perhaps retired GPs) who were still willing to sign
part 2s, being used by local undertakers. They would know neither
patient nor the part 1 doctor and would have to make appropriate
enquiries. Effectively they would become the "medical examiners"
proposed by the Shipman Inquiry.

--
Michael Leuty
Nottingham, UK