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Learning from Death to help the Living
AAPT and RCPath President Dr Michael Osborn and his colleague Dr Brian Hanley, explain the value of post mortems
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has presented a challenge for autopsy practice in the UK.
There was a large peak in the number of COVID-19-related deaths during March, April and May 2020 in England and it would have been beneficial to have established a national COVID-19 autopsy network.
This would have enabled pathologists to assess the pathological features of COVID-19 on a wider scale. Because of existing strains on the autopsy service nationally, a reduction in hospital autopsies in recent decades and the speed with which COVID-19 spread globally, only a handful of centres across the UK were able to perform autopsies on these cases.