Commission raises questions over Northern Ireland's death certificates

The system for investigating deaths in Northern Ireland's hospitals has failures, according to a report by the province's Human Rights Commission.

The report, written by Tony McGleenan, professor of law at the University of Ulster and a practising barrister, criticises the absence of an automatic requirement for an investigation into a death in hospital. “The system of death certification can conceal the presence of individual or systemic errors which have contributed to the death,” the report says.

A total of 14 462 people died in Northern Ireland …