Autopsy guidelines series

The College's autopsy guidelines enable pathologists to deal with non-forensic consent and Coroners’ or Procurator Fiscal post mortem examinations to a consistently high standard. They are crucial for ensuring standardised, high-quality procedures in pathology, providing a benchmark that upholds the accuracy and reliability of autopsy results.

These autopsy guidelines are technical documents which have been written as an aid for practising pathologists carrying out a coroners or procurator fiscal post mortem. As such, this guidance may contain some distressing information and is not intended for friends and relatives of the deceased.

There is some information about post-mortems for friends and relatives on our website and the Human Tissue Authority website.

Published documents

Documents under consultation

Members can comment on draft documents here.

Autopsy guidelines series

Published documents

New briefing on COVID-19 – Autopsy practice relating to possible cases of COVID-19

G157 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Autopsy for bodies recovered from water

G169 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Autopsy when drugs or poisoning may be involved

G193 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Fetal autopsy after termination of pregnancy or fetal loss associated with congenital anomaly

G161 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Fetal autopsy of 2nd trimester fetal loss (excluding termination of pregnancy for congenital anomaly)

G160 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Fetal autopsy following antepartum or intrapartum death of non-malformed fetuses

G100 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Maternal death

G188 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Traumatic brain injury

G191 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Sudden unexplained death in infancy and childhood

G159 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Autopsy in sickle cell disease and sickle trait

G179 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Deaths following known or suspected hanging

G171 Guidelines on autopsy practice: The decomposing cadaver

G117 Post-mortem examination in patients with cerebrovascular disease

G139 Guidance for pathologists conducting post-mortem examinations on individuals with implanted medical devices

G145 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Sudden death with likely cardiac pathology

G182 Guidelines for post-mortem cross-sectional imaging in adults for non-forensic deaths

G175 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Deaths in patients with epilepsy including sudden deaths

G176 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Autopsies after tissue and organ and donation

G174 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Postoperative deaths

G168 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Neonatal death

G173 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Autopsy examination following bariatric surgery

G172 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Aviation-related fatalities

G170 Guidelines on autopsy practice: Autopsy for suspected acute anaphylaxis

Guidelines on autopsy practice: Industrial/occupational-related lung disease deaths including asbestos

Documents under consultation

Authorship of clinical guidelines

Guidance for authors

Literature Review Guidance for Clinical Guidelines Development

Autopsy Guideline Review Process

An audit of compliance with national guidelines for external and internal examination at coronial autopsy