Catalogue description Committee on Death Certification and Coroners (Brodrick Committee): Minutes and Papers

The Committee was appointed by the Home Secretary, the Rt Hon Frank Soskice on 17 March 1965, under the chairmanship of Mr Norman Brodrick QC (as he then was) and its terms of reference were to review: (i) the law and practice relating to the issue of medical certificates of the cause of death and for the disposal of dead bodies and; (ii) the law and practice relating to Coroners and Coroners Courts, the reporting of deaths to the Coroners and related matters, and to recommend what changes are desirable.

The impetus for setting up this Committee was provided by the publication of a report prepared for the Private Practice Committee of the British Medical Association by some of the members of its Forensic Medicine Sub-committee. The report entitled Deaths in the Community argued that such were the loopholes in the existing law regulating death certification and the coroners system generally, that it was possible for homicides to go undetected, a claim the Committee dismissed quite early into their investigations.

The Committee published its report in November 1971, amidst considerable criticism about the amount of time it had taken over its deliberations.