Lead Medical ExaminerNHS
Job summary
This is a 1PA per week Trust Wide role.
We are seeking an experienced and compassionate medical professional to lead our Medical Examiner Service. This is a pivotal role in ensuring the quality, transparency, and sensitivity of death certification processes across the Trust.
You will provide clinical leadership to a team of Medical Examiners, ensuring that all deaths not referred to the Coroner are scrutinised appropriately. The role also involves supporting bereaved families, improving patient safety, and contributing to learning from deaths.
Main duties of the job
The Lead Medical Examiner will provide clinical leadership to ensure compliance with the legal and procedural requirements associated with the current processes of certification, investigation (HM Coroner) and registration of deaths within the local authority. The post holder will work collaboratively with the Medical Examiners by sharing experiences and expertise to support peer learning and standardise processes for service delivery. The post holder will work closely with all relevant stakeholders across County Durham and Darlington.
The main duties of the role are;
Lead and manage the Medical Examiner Service across the Trust
Ensure consistent and high-quality scrutiny of deaths in line with national guidance
Provide expert advice on cause of death and certification processes
Liaise with bereaved families to explain the cause of death and address concerns
Oversee recruitment, training, and professional development of Medical Examiners
Collaborate with the Coroners Office, Bereavement Services, and clinical governance teams
Ensure compliance with statutory requirements and NHS England standards
Support mortality surveillance
Job description
Ensure compliance with the legal and procedural requirements associated with death certification, investigation by coroners and registration of deaths
Provide leadership for the effective management of the Medical Examiners Office, including the supervision and development of any staff
Engage with the lead Medical Examiner and Medical Examiner Officer for the region
Adopt a collaborative working relationship with other MEs by sharing experiences and expertise to support peer learning
Maintain uniform standards of service delivery. This will include providing feedback to MEs to take into their main appraisal as part of the whole scope of practice
Undertake quality assurance of the service, providing feedback to MEs
Work with medical examiner officers (MEOs), delegating duties as appropriate
Provide leadership and direction to Medical Examiners upon appointment under the guidance of the Chief Medical Officer (notwithstanding the independent nature of the role)
Lead complaint responses with regards to the medical examiner service
Collaborate with trust patient safety and mortality review teams to enhance learning
Continue collaborative working with HM Coroner and other stakeholders
Maintain comprehensive records of all deaths scrutinised and undertake analysis to provide information to relevant stakeholders,
Facilitate routine analysis of Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) information to include within quarterly reports required by the Regional and National Medical Examiner Office.
Identify trends, patterns and unusual features of deaths and report to both the Trust patient safety and clinical governance teams and regional/national Medical Examiner Service.
About us
If you are being interviewed you must accept an interview slot in the system to continue, even if you have arranged with the manager.
You must be able to produce ALL certificates stated essential in the person specification or you will not be able to complete pre-employment checks.
We provide hospital services from two acute sites - Darlington Memorial Hospital and University Hospital of North Durham. We have a centre for planned care in Bishop Auckland and provide care from community hospitals in Chester-le-Street, Shotley Bridge, Barnard Castle, Sedgefield and Weardale as well as over 80 other community based settings and providing care in patients' homes.
We particularly welcome applications from disabled and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates as BAME and disabled people are currently under-represented.
Full Job Descriptions can be found in the adverts supporting documents.
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