The law and death

Nurses encounter the death of patients as part of their role. Patients continue find it difficult to discuss their wishes for the disposal of their remains and seldom understand the legal framework that regulates what happens to their bodies after death. This can result in the wishes of the person being ignored. Nurses are well placed to ensure that patients and their relatives are properly informed about how to ensure that arrangements for the disposal of the body comply with the wishes of the patient.

There is no statutory definition of death (Grubb et al, 2010). Generally, the Triad of Bichat (Griffith and Tengnah, 2008), which defines death as ‘the failure of the body as an integrated system associated with the irreversible loss of circulation, respiration and innervation’ is used to determine whether a person has died. Advances in medicine and mechanical ventilation have led to the courts accepting in evidence that a person is also considered dead when there is death of the brain stem (Re A (1992))