Lead Medical Examiner Officer - Peterborough

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Medical Examiner Officer to join the Medical Examiner service at North West Anglia Foundation Trust

You will be assisting Medical Examiners in carrying out their duty of independent scrutiny of deceased patient's medical records to review the patient's care and ascertain a cause of death. You are a point of contact and source of advice and support for relatives of deceased patients, healthcare professionals and coroner and registration services.

The nature of the job is such that it demands high standards of integrity. It is essential that you have good and clear interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to show empathy and deal sensitively with bereaved families in highly emotive situations, whilst maintaining professional standards.

Applicants will be required to work from either of our hospital sites as and when required to meet the needs of the service and should have reliable transport plans in place to facilitate this. A full rota of site working will be made available to the successful candidate on an ongoing basis.

Main duties of the job

To provide Leadership for the Medical Examiner Officers as part of the statutory Medical Examiner service at NWAFT for the scrutiny of all non-Coronial deaths.

Plan, co-ordinate and supervise training within the department.

Participate in education and training associated with and appropriate for the role.

Continually update and maintain own registration, self-development and awareness, identifying and utilising appropriate educational resources.

To work with the Medical Examiner Officers and Medical Examiners and act as an intermediary between the bereaved and clinicians to establish and resolve any concerns relating to a patient’s death.  Work with medical examiners to aid them in their responsibility for overseeing the death certification process for all deceased patients in the organisation and where appropriate act on behalf of the Medical Examiners.

To act autonomously in reporting cases to HM Coroner when medical staff/Medical Examiner is not available.

To assist in establishing the circumstances of individual patient deaths by performing a preliminary review of medical records to identify clinical and circumstantial information, sourcing additional details where required, for scrutiny by the medical examiner.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the attached detailed job description and person specification which is part of the advertisement for the role.

This role requires working across the different hospital sites within the Trust.