Medical Examiner

Job overview

If you are an experienced Consultant or General Practitioner willing to use your knowledge and expertise in the field of Pathology, join North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust to become our new Medical Examiner within the newly established Medical Examiner service.

The main base will be at Peterborough City Hospital, however, cross-site work will be required at Hinchingbrooke Hospital and around 50 primary care and private healthcare providers in the region. Our Medical Examiner service will expand from September 2024 to cover all non-coronial deaths for these secondary and primary healthcare providers.

The main responsibilities of the role will be reviewing deaths to facilitate the completion of death certificates, ensuring appropriate referrals to the coroner, addressing any questions from families, and triaging cases for Structured Judgement Review (SJR) or other clinical governance processes.

Main duties of the job

The principal responsibilities of the role are to:

• Screen the case records (paper and electronic) of patients who have died
• Support doctors completing the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD)
• Provide advice on the appropriate referral of cases to the coroner
• Scrutinise current cases, regardless of the location of death.
• Contact the deceased’s next of kin to explain the cause of death in a transparent, tactful and sympathetic manner, which respects different faith, cultural, ethnic and diversity considerations
• Ask the next of kin if they have any questions about the death certificate, the quality of care provided or any other matters relating to the patient’s death
• Complete cremation forms, where applicable, in line with current guidance
• Maintain comprehensive records of all deaths screened and provide input to the analysis of mortality data
• Comply with local protocols to ensure that each death is screened in a way that is robust, proportionate and consistent
• Exercise judgment in when and where to seek specialist advice to determine the appropriate level of scrutiny required.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

See attached full job description and person specification which can be found in the uploaded documents.