Medical Examiners Officer in Prescot inPrescot PUBLISHED TUE 15 APR 2025 Jump to job information section

Job Summary

The Mersey & West Lancashire (MWL) Medical Examiner Service, based at Whiston Hospital, are very excited to be extending our service and we are looking for an excellent Medical Examiner Officer to play a key role in our ongoing development. The Medical Examiner service is fundamental to supporting the bereaved, ensuring consistency and accuracy in death certification and promoting continuous learning. If you feel strongly about providing outstanding services to our community then we would like to hear from you.

Our ME service was established in 2021 to provide independent scrutiny of the circumstances and causes of in-hospital and Willowbrook Hospice deaths to support families with empathy and understanding through this process. We have now extended our service to include deaths that have occurred in the community. To make this a success we are looking to recruit an additional Medical Examiner Officers (MEO) to join our existing team.

Interview Date - Week commencing 12th May 2025

Main duties of the job

• Work with Medical Examiners and the Lead Medical Examiner's Officer to aid them in their responsibility for overseeing the death certification process for all deceased patients in the locality.
• 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, highlighting to the Medical Examiner any inconsistencies or areas of concern noted.
• To act as an intermediary between the bereaved and clinicians to establish and resolve any concerns relating to a patient's death.
• To liaise with the bereavement team as required in relation to keeping the bereaved informed and arrangements to issue the death certificate to them.
• To be able to work on his/her own initiative, referring to the Lead Medical Examiner Officer when necessary.
  
  

About Us

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.

Our Services:

Acute Care

Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.

Primary Care

Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.

Community Services

Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation, freeing up space for more unwell patients. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.

Specialist Regional Services

We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme
  
  

Date posted

04 April 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 5

Salary

£29,970 to £36,483 a year Per Annum, Pro Rata

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Part-time

Reference number

409-6768509

Job locations

Whiston Hospital

Prescot

L35 5DR

Job Description

Job responsibilities

KEY DUTIES

Work with Medical Examiners and the Lead Medical Examiner's Officer to aid them in their responsibility for overseeing the death certification process for all deceased patients in the locality.

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, highlighting to the Medical Examiner any inconsistencies or areas of concern noted.

To act as an intermediary between the bereaved and clinicians to establish and resolve any concerns relating to a patients death.

To liaise with the bereavement team as required in relation to keeping the bereaved informed and arrangements to issue the death certificate to them.

To be able to work on his/her own initiative, referring to the Lead Medical Examiner Officer when necessary.

CLINICAL & PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Maintain an awareness of the diverse needs of users of the medical examiner system to ensure equality to any particular group defined by sex, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or disability.

To assist in highlighting cases for assessment by the Structured Judgement Review team (SJR), Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP), Clinical Governance teams and the Learning Disability Review Teams (LeDeR).

Exercise judgment regarding concerns raised by relatives, which may be complex, to decide which of the escalation options available are most appropriate i.e. Coroner Referral, SJR, PALS.

Highly evolved empathetic and self-awareness skills to deal with bereaved families who may have barriers to understanding information due to their grief or disability.

To have an understanding of medical terminology that enables informed discussions about causes/ circumstances of death with bereaved families, clinicians, coroner and registration service staff.

Knowledge of the statutory process around death certification legal frameworks and how the medical examiner system aligns with other related organisations and NHS initiatives.

Be able to juggle conflicting demands, prioritise tasks and deal wit