23 / 66
21
Establishing the cause of death
6.6.
The cause of death recorded by the treating surgeon, as presented in Figure 7, is based on the clinical course of the
patient and any relevant supporting evidence from investigations. Where doubt exists around the circumstances
leading to death, the case will be referred to the coroner. In other instances, where the cause of death is not clear, a
postmortem examination may be requested. However, requests for postmortems are decreasing.
Figure 7: Frequency of reported causes of death.
Note: n=6,836 conditions were perceived to be responsible for death in 6,179 cases.
Audit period 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2015.
The cause of death is directly coded from the treating surgeon’s statement. Once a code has a count of ≥10 across the audit period it is included in
this figure by being grouped into larger overarching categories. This figure represents all 31 overarching categories of cause of death.
0
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Cardiac event
Multiple organ failure
Septicaemia
Pneumonia
Respiratory failure
Cardiac failure
Cerebrovascular accident
Renal failure
Gut ischaemia
Intracranial bleeding / Brain death
Malignancy
Cause unknown
Pulmonary embolism
Palliative care
Peritonitis
Ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm
Hepatic failure
Fracture of neck of femur
Haemorrhage
Gastrointestinal haemorrhage
Acute pancreatitis
Coagulopathy
Hypotension
Cholangitis
Malnutrition
Necrotising fasciitis
Hydrocephalus
Hypoxaemia
Acidosis
Dissecting aortic aneurysm
Haematemesis
Frequency during the audited period (n)
Cause of death
Frequent cause of death
Cardiac, respiratory & organ failure
2007-2014
Frequent cause of death
Cardiac, organ failure & Septicaemia
2014-2015