Medical Examiner

We are seeking to appoint dynamic and enthusiastic doctors with at least five years’ experience as a fully registered medical practitioner to the role of Medical Examiner. The posts will be for 0.5 or 1PA per week (1.5 PAs available currently) and can be worked on an annualised basis.

The Medical Examiner(s) are senior doctors who are expected to screen and review deaths (from the preceding weekend or working day) to an agreed policy and time frame. This will include liaising with the attending practitioners regarding cause of death and formulation of the MCCD, and with the Coroner where appropriate. The job description and person specification attached are modelled from the Royal College of Pathologists in line with a national requirement to develop a method for reducing inaccuracies in death certificates and achieving greater confidence in learning from deaths.

The Medical Examiner Service was established in June 2020 at the North Middlesex and we are currently expanding the service to include community deaths in Enfield and Haringey.

This independent service comprises seven Medical Examiners and four Medical Examiner Officers who combine clinical skills and compassion to engage with every bereaved family to answer the questions “why did the patient die?” and “can we learn from it?” Following review, cases are selected using the trust policy for further analysis using a Structured Judgement Review Process by the departmental team.

Following this review cases are selected using the trust policy for further analysis using a Structured Judgement Review Process by the departmental team. If safety concerns are detected the Trust’s incident policy will be used for investigation of the concerns.

The service is expanding to include scrutiny of all community deaths in Haringey and Enfield, however the Medical Examiner Office will be based at the North Middlesex University Hospital.

Out of hours provision is currently being reviewed and rolled out in the coming months. Participation on this rota is on a voluntary basis and will attract additional payment.

North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust is a medium sized Hospital based in Edmonton, Enfield, North London. We serve a diverse multicultural population from the London boroughs of Enfield and Haringey. Many of our patients live in wards that are within the 5% most deprived in the UK and a substantial proportion of our patients were born abroad. This makes it both a fascinating and challenging hospital to work in.

Over the last decade we have rebuilt almost all of the hospital and now have facilities that we are proud to work in. We employ over 3,500 staff, more than half of whom live locally. We are primarily an emergency led hospital with more that 90% of our bed days being used for patients admitted via our emergency and ambulatory units. As well as offering everything you would expect from a major acute hospital, we have a number of tertiary services treating patients with HIV, sickle Cell disease and a large cancer and radiotherapy service. We also run our local community sexual health clinics.

We are proud of our staff and want to ensure their training allows them to provide excellent clinical care. We are also a training unit for medical students from UCL and St George’s University Grenada, and for nursing and midwifery students from Middlesex and City Universities.

To ensure compliance with the legal and procedural requirements associated with the current and proposed reformed processes of certification, investigation by coroners and registration of deaths.

To scrutinise the certified causes of death offered by attending doctors in a

way that is proportionate, consistent and compliant with the proposed national protocol.

To discuss and explain the cause of death with next of kin/informants in a

transparent, tactful and sympathetic manner. It is anticipated that such

discussions will be predominately conducted through telephone conversations.

To ensure that all users of the Medical Examiner Service are treated with respect and are not discriminated against on the grounds of sex, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or disability.

To maintain comprehensive records of all deaths scrutinised and undertake

analysis to provide information to the National Medical Examiner’s office.

To participate in relevant clinical governance activities relating to death

certification including audits, mortality review processes and investigations

regarding formal complaints about patient care.

To support the training of junior doctors in their understanding of death

certification and promote good practice in accurate completion of MCCDs.

To work with medical examiner officers (MEOs), delegating duties as appropriate.

To engage with lead ME and lead MEO for the region.

To adopt a collaborative working relationship with other MEs by sharing

experiences and expertise to support peer learning and set un