Lead Medical Examiner Officer

at  Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust

JOB OVERVIEW

The Medical Examiners service is looking for a dynamic Lead Medical Examiner Officer to join the team. We are looking for someone with excellent interpersonal skills, who can work with bereaved families and support the Medical Examiners and staff within the Trust.
The Medical Examiner Officer role has been created by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The introduction of the Medical Examiner system will promote robust, transparent and independent scrutiny of death certification processes for all non-coronial deaths.
Nationally, Medical Examiner Services are will become Statutory across England and Wales from 9 September 2024. The Medical Examiners are qualified senior doctors who provide the scrutiny of each case.
The Lead Medical Examiner Officer role supports the functioning of the medical examiner office and combines clinical knowledge, skilled communication in sensitive areas (including with bereaved families) effective organisation and IT skills in developing and maintaining the medical examiner records and database both locally and nationally.

DESIRABLE CRITERIA

• Experience of working as an MEO in a healthcare setting with multi-disciplinary teams across organisational boundaries
  Your application: Please ensure that you have read the job description and person specification and that your supporting statement reflects these, as your application will be assessed and scored against these criteria.
  References: You will be required to provide 3 years of employment/educational history. We do not accept references from personal email addresses such as Hotmail, Gmail etc. therefore please ensure you are providing professional working email addresses within your application form. If you are unable to provide professional email addresses and are invited to an interview, please ensure you advise the interviewers of this - otherwise, this may delay your pre-employment checks.
  Closing date: In order to streamline recruitment within our Trust, we reserve the right to expire vacancies prior to the advertised closing date once we have received a sufficient number of applications.
  Shortlisting: You will only be contacted via e-mail/SMS by the SWL Recruitment Hub if you are successfully shortlisted for this post. Please ensure that you check your Trac registered e-mail regularly.
  DBS: We are committed to safeguarding children and adults who are at risk of abuse. As such, if this post will have access to children or vulnerable adults, you will be required to undertake an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check. However, all employees have a responsibility for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults in the course of their duties and for ensuring that they are aware of the specific duties relating to their role.

Disability Advice Line: SWL Recruitment Hub is committed to promoting equity and equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities. We believe that greater diversity and inclusion will lead to an even more positive impact on the people we serve. For support with job opportunities and reasonable adjustments contact our Confidential Disability Advice Line at:

MAIN DUTIES OF THE JOB

To support the Medical Examiners (ME) in their role in scrutinising the circumstances and causes of death and be a point of contact and source of advice for relatives of deceased patients, healthcare professionals and coroner and registration services.
To work independently in the role of the MEO and collaboratively with other MEOs, MEs and Bereavement Officers.
To support the Senior Medical Examiner in the integration and implementation of systems and processes relating to the Medical Examiner role and the National Learning from Death Strategy in the Trust and in the community.

DETAILED JOB DESCRIPTION AND MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

1. To work with Medical Examiners to aid them in their responsibility for overseeing the death certification process for all deceased patients in the organisation.
2. To establish the circumstances of individual patient deaths by performing a preliminary review of medical record to identify clinical and circumstantial information, sourcing additional details where required for scrutiny by the Medical Examiner.
3. To refer patients to the coroner for further investigation on approval by the Medical Examiner.
4. Oversee and lead on the quarterly data collection required for the National Medical Examiner (NME) with support from the Senior Medical Examiner.
5. To highlight cases for assessment by the Structured Judgement Review Team (SJR), Maternity, Child Death cases, Clinical Governance team and other teams as necessary and sharing information via Trust systems as needed.
6. Oversee and lead on the monitoring of quality concerns identified by the Medical Examiner Service, escalating any themes to Trust Governance mechanisms.
7. Oversee and lead on the Medical Examiner Service with ensuing incidents relating to an issue in care, system or process are reported through mortality reviews, incident reporting and/or safeguarding frameworks.
8. To work collaboratively with the Trust and community teams currently managing the death certification processes, ensuring seamless processes are maintained for the benefit of the bereaved relatives and ensure that statutory requirements and future changes in the death certification processes are implemented.
9. Work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders for the purposes of ensuring statutory requirements are maintained and to access information required to contribute to national and internal reporting requirements.
10. Represent the Medical Examiner Service at regional and national forums.
11. Review departmental policies and procedures to reflect best practice in the delivery of a Medical Examiner system, with support from the Senior Medical Examiner.
12. Work collaboratively with the Lead Medical examiner and community stakeholders, leading on expansion of the Medical Examiner Service into the community.
13. Oversee and line manage a team of Medical Examiners and Officers and oversee the Medical Examiner office functions across sites.
14. To be responsible for organising Medical Examiner development afternoons and sharing learning with the team.
15. Take part in operational management meetings with the Lead Medical Examiner and Associate Medical Director to ensure appropriate governance and direction for the Medical Examiner service and provide updates to the AMD as required.
16. Work collaboratively with the Lead Medical Examiner, Associate Medical Director and Complaints team to ensure complaints received about the Medical Examiner service are responded to appropriately.
17. 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.
18. To provide managerial support to the Lead Bereavement Officer and ensure the maintenance of good collaborative working between Bereavement and Medical Examiner Teams