Medical Examiner Officer

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a full time Band 5 Medical Examiner Officer (MEO) to join the Medical Examiner Service hosted by Northern Lincolnshire & Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLaG).

You will be assisting the Medical Examiner in carrying out their duty of independent scrutiny of deceased patients’ medical records, to review the care and ascertain a cause of death. In addition, you will communicate with the next of kin of deceased patients, healthcare professionals, coroners, and registration services.

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

This post will primarily be based at Diana Princess of Wales Hospital however occasionally you will be required to work from Scunthorpe General Hospital as and when required to meet the needs of the service.

The purpose of this role is to support the Medical Examiners (ME) in their role of scrutinising the circumstances and causes of death and to be a point of contact and source of advice for relatives of deceased patients, healthcare professionals, HM Coroner and North/North East Lincolnshire death Registration Services.

**The main duties of this post offers are**:

- To act as a liaison between the bereaved, clinicians and external organisations to establish and resolve any concerns relating to a patient’s death.
- To work with Medical Examiners to aid them in their responsibility for overseeing the scrutiny and death certification process for all deceased patients in the organisation and community.
- 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 keep accurate records in accordance with local and national processes.

We’re a large organisation with three hospitals located in Scunthorpe, Grimsby and Goole. We also provide community services in North Lincolnshire. Our 6,500 members of staff care for and support a population of more than 400,000 people.

We encourage all our staff to innovate and adopt ‘best practice’ so we can deliver excellent care to our patients. We ask staff to live our values; kindness, courage and respect.

We are committed to recruiting the best people to work with us. You could be one of them.

In line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Recruitment & Workforce team will use and hold your personal data for the intended purpose and in line with the Recruitment & Workforce Privacy Statement.

“We are committed to safeguarding the welfare of children/vulnerable adults and expect the same commitment from all staff and volunteers”.

Please be aware that all new employees starting work with us will be charged for the cost of their DBS check, if it is required for their role.

**Communications and Key Working Relationships**:
Internal to Trust
- Medical Examiners
- Hospital doctors and other healthcare professionals
- Medical Records
- Divisional Management Teams
- Trust Bereavement Service
- Clinical and Quality Governance Teams
- Infection Prevention Control
- Mortuary staff
- Management Accountants Bureau
- Community teams
- Pastoral and Spiritual care Team
- Specialty Teams - SUDIC Team (Child death), Safeguarding, Mental Health Lead.

External to Trust
- HM Coroner and officers
- Spiritual/Faith community leads
- Registrars of births and deaths
- GPs and practice staff
- Hospices
- Private care providers
- NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB)
- Bereaved relatives, carers, and executors/solicitors.
- Funeral Directors
- Regional Lead for ME system (Dr Graham Cooper as of July2023)
- Regional Medical Examiner Officer (Josephine Charlton as of July 2023)
- Humberside Police

The information to be communicated by the MEO will be sensitive and some situations may be highly charged, emotive and demanding. The MEO must maintain excellent communication skills with a high level of empathy when communicating with the next of kin.

The purpose and tasks of the Medical Examiner Officer Post are:
Analytical and Judgemental Skills
- To advise on the completion of the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) by the clinicians and to ensure all appropriate deaths are reported to the coroner.
- To conduct a preliminary review to identify relevant information for the Medical Examiner to perform their duties efficiently.
- Expedite scrutiny of deaths where time is of the essence eg. Faith deaths and organ/tissue donation.

Planning and Organisational Skills
- To develop and maintain excellent partnership working with other MEOs to ensure consistency of service across sites as well as arranging/organising cover for planned absence, so that the Medical