By Hugh Pym Health editor It is "incomprehensible" that the death certificates system has not been reformed since the conviction of Harold Shipman, a leading pathologist says.
Royal College of Pathologists' president Dr Suzy Lishman told the BBC introducing independent assessors in England and Wales was "long overdue".
GP Shipman, jailed for murder in 2000, drew up death certificates for his 250 victims which went unchallenged.
The Department of Health said it was committed to reforming the system.
Medical assessorsDr Lishman called on the government to revisit the issue and implement changes without delay.
Changes in death certification were among the safeguards recommended by Dame Janet's Smith inquiry into Shipman's crimes in 2004.
That inquiry was followed by a specific review of coroners and death certification, chaired by former Department of Health official Tom Luce.
Mr Luce's review, covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland, called for:
- Medical assessors to be appointed in local communities to review death certificates
- Fewer investigations into how and why people die
- A charter of rights for families
- New powers for relatives to question coroners' decisions.
The Labour government legislated for the reforms in 2009 but they were not implemented.
The current government committed to introducing the reforms including appointing independent medical examiners in local authority areas to counter-sign and scrutinise death certificates.
'Repeatedly failed'Robert Francis QC, in his inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal, strongly supported the need for independent monitoring of death certificates.
There have been pilot schemes but the changes have not yet been put into practice and it is understood they have been put on hold until after the general election.
It is thought the question of who pays the bill for the new system of medical examiners has not been resolved.
Mr Luce, chairman of the 2003 coroners review, told the BBC: "The government has repeatedly promised to introduce a safer system but has repeatedly failed to do so and has now gone back on its undertakings and deferred action indefinitely.
"Around half-a-million people die every year in England and Wales so around seven million deaths have been dealt with through a system known for at least a dozen years to be unsafe. It is scarcely believable that this is to continue."
'Reforms will proceed'A Department of Health spokesman said: "We now have working models of the medical examiner service in Sheffield and Gloucester and will be working to review how they fit with other developments on patient safety.
"The reforms will proceed in light of that review."
Shipman was jailed for life in January 2000 for murdering 15 of his patients and forging the will of one.
A public inquiry later decided the 57-year-old had killed at least 250 patients over 23 years while practising in Hyde, Greater Manchester, and in West Yorkshire.
He killed himself in prison in January 2004.
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