The purpose of the Bill is: to deliver an improved system of death investigation for families so that they can be assured that the cause of death of their relative has been properly established and that, where possible, lessons can be learned to prevent future deaths.
The main elements of the Bill are to:
• Create a new national coroner service, moving towards whole time coroners working to national minimum standards (funding responsibility will remain with local authorities);
• Create a new system of secondary certification of deaths that are not referred to the coroner, covering both burials and cremations;
• Establish a new group of medical examiners to scrutinise independently the causes of death given by doctors on death certificates;
• Introduce new powers of investigation for coroners, including improved procedures for post mortems and inquests;
• Establish a new Chief Coroner as head of the coroner service, improve arrangements for coroner appointments and training, and provide for independent inspection of coroners;
• Create new flexible boundaries between coroner areas to enable services to be delivered to families more effectively, and with powers for the Chief Coroner to reallocate work to prevent backlogs of work developing;
• Establish new and accessible rights of appeal for bereaved people against coroners’ decisions;
• Introduce a Charter for the Bereaved outlining a full range of rights for bereaved people to be informed and consulted about case progress by coroners.
The main benefits of the Bill are:
• The needs of bereaved families will be placed at the heart of the coroner and death certification systems;
• Those who are suddenly or unexpectedly bereaved will in future be given opportunities to participate in coroners’ investigations, including rights to information and access to a straightforward appeals system;
• All those who are bereaved will have reassurance that there is independent checking of the causes of death given on death certificates;
• There will be improved information for clinical governance and local public health monitoring, which will help to prevent future deaths.
• More full-time coroners who will be more immediately available – to bereaved families, and to the police and medical professionals – than in the current predominantly part-time system;
• Improved investigative powers for coroners will ensure they are better able to get information to establish the causes of a violent or unexpected death;
• An improved service for families through further steps to ensure that coroners are properly resourced.
