Show notes: Ash cash, William Boyd and parliamentary archive
Thanks to everyone who contributed to Saturday's programme - the stories we covered:
'Ash cash'
We looked at the issues around the cash fee that's required for doctors to release a body for cremation. Interviews with listener Pauline Levey who first emailed in, Dr George Fernie who chairs the British Medical Association's forensic medicine committee and blogging junior doctor, Rohin Francis, are all on the blog.
Harry Potter court case
We interviewed Steve Vander Ark of the Harry Potter Lexicon website.
Favourites
Author and filmmaker William Boyd speaks about his favourite websites.
House of Commons parliamentary archive
Professor Eric Ringmar is angry that much of the House of Commons online archive can only be accessed for a fee.
On the blog you can listen to extended interviews with Prof Ringmar and Publishing Director Dan Burnstone from Proquest, the company given permission to digitise the parliamentary records.
If there's a story you think we should look at for next week's programme, or if you have ideas on the stories we currently have in production, let us know. You can suggest a story on the blog or email: ipm { at } bbc.co.uk
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Comments
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I think Pauline Levey's comments were unfair. The cremation fee is not part of the NHS in the same way the death certificate is because cremation is a wish of the relatives and not a medical service provided to the patient. Hospital doctors should declare their income from ash cash but because the pay tax by PAYE rarely do, because they are not sent Tax Returns, in fact they also do not claim the cost of their stethoscope, BMA membership, MDU fees either, so in most cases the Revenue wins. GP do declare their cremation fees because the tax man expects to see them and will start a painful investigation if you don't!
The cremation form requires you to examine the body after death personally whereas the death certificate allows you to take the word of another doctor that they are dead. Most hospital doctors will do this during their lunch hour, GP's will have to travel to the mortuary or the undertaker. It is usually in our own time. The form requires us to identify who was present at the time of death, that the relatives have no concerns and that there is nothing to suppose the death was due to malice. This often requires some sensitive phone calls. After Shipman there is every evidence that doctors undertake this task in a responsible manner. An ash cash visit to an undertaker can take forty minutes in traveling, seeing the body, making phone calls, and filling in the form, as far as private fees go, this is very much on par. If Rohin Francis doesn't do the job properly then he should look over his shoulder for the General Medical Council. He won't feel very junior after he has had to explain himself before them!
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