COVID-19 post-mortem portal and results

We have developed this portal as a means to build a database of information to help inform the treatment of COVID-19 patients and research about the disease. This initiative has the support of the Coroners Society of England and Wales and the Chief Coroner. It is led by Professor Jo Martin, College President, and Dr Mike Osborn, President Elect and Chair of the College's Death Investigations Committee. 

The findings document can be found below the submission form (login required).

You can submit your cases using the form below. Our team of pathologists will review all submissions, extract the salient information and add data to a findings document, which will be available to members at the bottom of this page (requires login). 

Please submit your cases as soon as a preliminary report is available. You can return to this page to upload the authorised report and we will use it to replace the preliminary data in our findings document.

If you have anonymised digital slide images or macro photos from the case you are submitting, please upload these too (we can take up to five slides per case, maximum file size 5MB each). The World Health Organization (WHO) is developing a digital slide bank of COVID-19 cases from all over the world to facilitate research and learning. Images submitted to the WHO will be coupled with a minimum dataset derived from the post-mortem report. The College will submit any suitable cases shared by you with us to this WHO database and fill out their dataset from your report on your behalf unless you specify on your submission you would not like us to share this information with them.

There is an opportunity to submit additional information, such as results of post-mortem COVID-19 testing and the length of time after death the test was taken.

Please note: we will not be assessing or critiquing the quality of reports – we wish only to obtain as much information as possible that can be shared with clinical colleagues.

Submit your anonymised post-mortem report

Please note: users of Internet Explorer may be unable to upload images. We are working to fix this. In the meantime, we recommend using Safari, Chrome or Firefox.

If you only have access to Internet Explorer and are unable to upload images, please make a note of this in additional notes and provide your email address, and we will be in touch to collect the data from you.

Notes for submission

Please submit your cases as soon as a preliminary report is available. You can return to this page to upload the authorised report via the form and we will use it to replace the preliminary data in our findings document. To aid this, please retain the report case number or hospital number when anonymising the report. In addition, please:

  • note whether the report relates to a proven (test positive) COVID-19-related death or a suspected COVID-19-related death, and whether the report is the authorised final report or preliminary unauthorised report
  • anonymise your case by removing the name, date of birth and any identifying material such as address
  • keep the age and, if possible, ethnicity of the deceased in the report
  • provide as much clinical history as possible
  • submit your case even if no histology was taken
  • provide as much detail about COVID-19 test results as possible, be they conducted before or after death – especially the length of time after death a result has been positive
  • If you have anonymised digital slide images or macro photos from the case you are submitting please upload these too (we can take up to five slides per case, 5MB each). They will be included in our findings document.

Tooltip link

Tooltip link

You can provide your name, email and any additional notes on your report, so the team can contact you should they wish to discuss any particular elements. This is not required to submit your report. Please note: if you are logged in to the website, the form will automatically record your name.

 

Download the College's report on our findings

We published the first set of findings on 21 May 2020. We subsequently published an updated dataset on 30 June 2020. 

Please login to view the dataset.

Please note you will need to refresh this page once you have logged in.