Statement on inaccurate media coverage on mortality reporting
Some media coverage around the independent report into mortality reporting and recording is claiming ‘hundreds died on the day they left care’.
These reports refer to page 38 of the report which cites 278 patients where the ‘date of discharge is the same day as the day they died’.
This is because, if an individual is under our care – for example if they receive mental health support in the community – if they sadly die (from any cause), our clinicians will close (discharge) the patient’s record using the individual’s date of death as the date of discharge on our systems. This is entirely appropriate and standard practice when updating NHS patient records following a death.
This is around processes and record-keeping and it is not accurate to say those individuals “died on the same day as discharge”.
The same section of the report expands on this: ‘there is a process question needed to ascertain why some patients are discharged on the day of death and why other records remain open for a number of days or weeks after death until they are discharged.’
For these patients, there might be a delay in NSFT being notified of the individual’s death, for example, or the date of death may not be known at the time – this is then updated when the information is known.
In both instances, the report is concerned around how NSFT records information relating to an individual’s death, rather than commenting on the care that they received.