The General Medical Council (GMC) has for the first time drafted guidance clarifying doctors’ responsibility to respect religious and cultural beliefs after a patient’s death. Previous guidance referred to care for the dying, but did not outline doctors’ duties after a patient’s death.

The draft guidance highlights the challenges that patients and carers from ethnic minority groups can experience in accessing good quality end of life care. It also clarifies doctors’ responsibility to take account of patients’ cultural, religious and spiritual needs in decisions about their care. After a patient’s death, doctors are asked to consider and accommodate for these needs wherever possible, both in relation to bereaved families, as well as to the way in which a patient’s body is treated.

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