Rhône / Ain / Loire. Nurses authorized to issue death certificates

Drawing up a death certificate is the first necessary step to initiate all funeral operations, particularly when the death takes place at home, and in particular those related to the transport of the body of the deceased to a funeral home. However, in certain territories, families of the deceased face significant waiting times before obtaining this certificate.

A 2020 decree has already extended the issuance of death certificates to retired doctors, interns and practitioners with foreign qualifications. The 2023 social security financing law set up an experiment allowing volunteer and trained nurses to draw up death certificates for adults who died at home or in EHPADs where 40% of deaths occur.

Experimentation extended to the entire region

In the region, 4 departments are now participating in this experiment: Rhône, Loire, Ain and Puy-de-Dôme. More than 200 nurses volunteered to intervene if doctors were unavailable “within a reasonable time”. The experiment will be extended to the entire Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in May.

The experiment must evaluate the feasibility and acceptability by nurses of establishing death certificates as well as the consequences on improving certification times and on the quality of the data entered in these certificates.