Medical Examiner Officer

Job overview

We are looking for a Band 5 Medical Examiner Officer (MEO) to join the Medical Examiner’s Office at the Princess Royal University Hospital Farnborough.   The Medical Examiner system is a new service, recently introduced in England and Wales, which will become statutory from September  2024. The principal functions are: •    To provide the bereaved with explanation, transparency and an early opportunity to ask questions or raise concerns. •    Improve accuracy and quality in all aspects of the medical certification of the cause of death. •    Ensure appropriate referral to the Coroner. •    To safeguard the public through consistent scrutiny of all non-coronal deaths. •    To support clinical governance in learning and improvement. The current service is currently scrutinising all deaths in the hospital, and community in in Bexley and Bromley area.

Main duties of the job

We are seeking an individual who will be responsible for working within the Medical Examiner Offices at the Princess Royal.

The role will participate in all aspects of the department when required, including the completion of paperwork required for the Medical Examiner to scrutinise each death and ensuring that all deaths are scrutinised in a timely manner.

You will work closely with the Lead Medical Examiner Officer in continually developing the Medical Examiner service and will take an active role in supporting the scrutiny of coronial deaths within the community and manage the  Medical Examiners Service on a daily basis in the absence of the lead Medical Examiner Officer.

• Assist the Lead MEO with the provision of accurate data returns to comply with National and Regional Medical Examiner requirements. Attend meetings as required to represent the Medical Examiner Service. To maintain workflow through the Medical Examiners’ Service to ensure all targets are met.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To 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.

To establish 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.

To assist in highlighting cases for assessment by the Structured Judgement Review team (SJR), Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP), Clinical Governance teams and the Learning Disability Review Teams (LeDeR).

To refer patients to the coroner for further investigation on approval by the Medical Examiner

Maintain an awareness of the diverse needs of users of the medical examiner system to ensure equality to any particular group defined by sex, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or disability.