http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30909270

Cheapness and incompetence.

Part of the problem is the way it's all done.

1. Joe Blogg, 88 years old and has a history of heart attacks is found dead on the toilet. GP saw him a week ago about his angina. GP might well write MCCD as heart attack caused by ischaemic heart disease caused by high blood pressure. Mr Bloggs has a burial, it all gets accepted.

2. Mr Bloggs is to be cremated instead of buried. GP now needs to fill in additional form. A second GP from another practice will need to verify details including inspecting Mr Bloggs, the medical records and questioning the original GP. All is okay, and Mr Bloggs has a cremation.

3. Mr Bloggs wasn't seen by a GP for the last six months. The GP is unsure why Mr Bloggs died. He calls the coroner's office. Coroner's officer might imply to word MCCD as in (1). GP can agree to this or ask for postmortem.

The only way to be sure of how someone died is to do a post-mortem. And sometimes even that won't always give the answer. But you can't go round performing postmortems on everybody - it causes upset, it delays the funeral, there's not enough resources incl pathologists.