§ Denzil DaviesTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish guidelines setting out the circumstances in which general practitioners can record MRSA as a secondary cause of death. [144021]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonGuidance is already available and general practitioners, hospital doctors and coroners should include methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), or any other condition that they believe contributed to death, on the certificate of cause of death. Instructions on how to complete this are at the front of 201W every book of certificates. Doctors are expected to complete the certificate to the best of their knowledge and belief. If the doctor believes that MRSA contributed to the death he or she should write it in the appropriate part of the certificate and doctors do include MRSA on death certificates.