Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's Medical Examiner (ME) Office is a key part of its mortality review process to support the implementation of national guidance on learning from deaths.
The successful post holder will support the MEs in their role in scrutinising the circumstances and causes of death to enable the Trust to improve the experience of those patients who die in our care and the 'aftercare' of families/next of kin.
This is a clinically led department within the Clinical Support Business Unit.
We have ME Offices based at North Tyneside General Hospital, Wansbeck General Hospital, and Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital.
This role will be rotational Trustwide with the main base for the role at Wansbeck General Hospital.
We have two permanent roles available.
Please note we reserve the right to close this vacancy prior to the closing date once the required number of suitable applications have been received.
Please note: for Secondment roles before an application is submitted, please ensure you have received the appropriate approval from your current manager and have completed documentation required beforehand (see secondment policy), as this may delay the process if an offer was to be made.
Main duties of the job
You will be a point of contact/advice for relatives of deceased patients, healthcare professionals, coroner, and registration services. You will provide advice and support to junior doctors/nursing staff regarding the legal requirements relating to registration of death, completion of necessary investigations including referral to the Coroner's office. You will be responsible for the admin function of the ME service, accountable to the Operational Service Manager. You will be the first point of contact for bereaved relatives/carers, providing advice and support regarding the ME process and dealing with any concerns raised. You will collate information regarding the performance of the ME service and any learning from investigations undertaken by the ME/Coroner.
Job responsibilities
The ME service will consider and respond to 3 key issues:
1. The cause of death to ensure that it is recorded accurately on the MCCD. This will minimise the potential for the registrar to decline to issue a certificate of death as a result of inappropriate or unacceptable descriptions on the MCCD and the resultant negative impact on the relatives of the deceased. They will be responsible for ensuring all relevant paperwork required by relatives is completed in a timely fashion, including additional paperwork associated with the ME process.
2. Whether the death needs to be reported to the coroner - the ME service reduces the number of inappropriate referrals to the coroner and improves the timeliness when a referral is required.
3. Whether there are any clinical governance issues related to the death early review of patient notes and discussions with relatives will allow timely identification of potential significant incident investigations.
The MEO will support the MEs in their role in scrutinising the circumstances and causes of death. They will be a point of contact and source of advice for relatives of deceased patients, healthcare professionals, and coroner and registration services. The MEO will provide advice and support to junior doctors and nursing staff regarding the legal requirements relating to registration of death, completion of necessary investigations including referral to the Coroners office.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Educated to Bachelor's Degree level or equivalent working knowledge in a related field
* Successful completion of the MEO core training modules of the national online training curriculum prior to undertaking case record reviews as an MEO
Other
* It is an essential requirement of the role that the post holder has a valid driving licence and is either a car owner and able to use the car for work purposes, or has a Trust personal lease vehicle which may be used for the role.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
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