Recommendation IHRD-43: GP Notification of Death Circumstances
From Report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths, published 31 January 2018.
Recommendation
A deceased's family GP should be notified promptly as to the circumstances of death to enable support to be offered in bereavement.
In brief (written by this site)
The Department of Health (Northern Ireland) reported in October 2022 that delivery of this recommendation remained in progress (Department of Health (Northern Ireland), Oct 2022). It stated that initial preparatory work had been completed by the relevant workstreams and sub-groups, but explained that "further work is now required to ensure appropriate implementation at service level" (Department of Health (Northern Ireland), Oct 2022). This ongoing work was to be overseen directly by the implementation programme team (Department of Health (Northern Ireland), Oct 2022).
Sources
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
About this summary
This recommendation applies across many organisations. The record reflects central policy activity; adoption in individual organisations may vary.
Government response
My Department accepts the recommendations of the O'Hara Report in their entirety.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
The Minister of Health accepted all 96 recommendations together, in one sentence of a written statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 25 March 2021. That sentence is not a response to any one recommendation alone, and the Department of Health published no response to each recommendation. The Department's statements of 31 January, 2 February and 30 March 2018 contain no acceptance of the recommendations.
Delivery
Department of Health (Northern Ireland) says in progress (28 October 2022)
the 20 actions, to be overseen by the IHRD Programme Team, where initial work has been completed by the Workstreams and Sub-groups, but where further work is now required to ensure appropriate implementation at service level.
Site note: These words are from the Department of Health's document linked on this page. The Department's website asks automated tools not to fetch its document files directly, so the site cites the page that links the document.
Site note: The Department's October 2022 statement gives this passage once, for a group of 20 actions, and does not list the recommendations in the group. The site places this recommendation in it from the Department's per-action list of the same date, where Phase 2A holds 20 actions.
Source
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department of Health NI
Response - Department of Health (Northern Ireland)
Delivery statement