Table 1 Eligibility criteria for Regional CODE™ survey

Next-of-kin to:

• A deceased adult patient (>/= 18 years of age)

○ who had died within the organisation

(note: within the community setting, only patient deaths that occurred in the person’s usual place of residence were included).

○ Whose death occurred between 1st September and 30th November 2014.

• Potential participant currently involved in a formal complaint process (to minimise additional distress).

• Unexpected deaths’ were excluded (e.g. death due to an accident or suicide) in line with the National End of Life Intelligence Network approach (28) and the methodology used in the 2015 National Audit (12)

• Within the hospital setting, to ensure the death was ‘expected’, the following were excluded:

• Deaths </= 24 h of admission

• Deaths in the Accident &Emergency department

• Case of death from the following ICD-10 codes: acute myocardial infarction (I21, I22); pulmonary embolism (I26); pulmonary aneurysm (I281); sudden cardiac death (I461); aortic aneurysm (I71); injury, poisoning or external causes (S00-T98).