The newcurrent medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD) was introduced as part of the statutory medical examiner system on 9 September 2024, along with updated guidance for medical practitioners completing an MCCD in England and Wales. 

The Department of Health and Social Care sent guidance on how to order MCCDs - and a unique passcode - to organisations that use MCCDs.

Ordering more MCCDs

GPAll practices,organisations hospitals,that hospicesuse andMCCDs medicalshould ensure examiner offices should check they have enough MCCDs to last untila theyear endand oforder Aprilmore if 2024.necessary.

New MCCDs are usually delivered within 5 working days of receipt of the order. 

You can order more more MCCDs using using the guidance and passcode you received. Email mccd@dhsc.gov.uk if 

If you did not receivereceive, or have lost, the guidance andand/or your unique passcode, oremail ifthe MCCD mailbox at mccd@dhsc.gov.uk specifying whether you needrequire a newpasscode, passcode.guidance Youor mustboth.

For passcode and guidance requests to be processed, you must:

• copy in a colleague from your organisation (for security and confirmation of organisation)
• supply the organisation’s practicefull manager,address, medicalincluding directorpostcode

Organisations orin leadWales medicalmust examiner.order the bilingual MCCD only. This is shown by the letter ‘W’ at the end of the MCCD product - for example, APC1W, APC2W, MEC3W and MEC4W.

Retaining the completed MCCD

Many GPs, hospitals, hospiceshospices, care homes and medical examiner offices scan the completed MCCD before emailing it to their medical examiner office,office coroner(and ormany medical examiner offices scan the completed MCCD before sending it to the register office.office). You must securely store the paper copy of the completed MCCD and any partially completed MCCDs until the medical examiner has confirmed the cause of death to you and sent the completed MCCD to the registrar.

Once the medical examiner has confirmed the cause of death and anysent partiallythe completed MCCDsMCCD. to the registrar, all duplicate copies of the MCCD, held by the attending practitioner and medical examiner, can be destroyed.

In England and Wales, GPs, hospitals, hospices and medical examiner offices must keep completed counterfoils for 2 years in line with NHS England’s Recordsrecords Managementmanagement Codecode of Practicepractice.

Further guidance on the retention of completed and partiallyNHS completedWales’ MCCDsrecords willmanagement becode publishedof inpractice 2025.2022.

Old MCCD

You should securely destroy unused booklets of the the MCCD that that were in use before 9 September 2024.

For partially used booklets, you should remove and securely destroy the the unused unused MCCDs, leaving the counterfoils only.

In England, GPs, hospitals, hospiceshospices, care homes and medical examiner offices must keep completed counterfoils for old MCCDs for 2 years before destroying in line with NHSwith NHS England’s Recordsrecords Managementmanagement Codecode of Practice.practice.

In Wales, the equivalent guidance is the NHS Wales records management code of practice. This sets out the requirements for the retention, storage and destruction of health records, including those related to death.