Medical Examiner Officer (MEO)

at  Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust

Professional responsibilities: To act as an intermediary between the bereaved and clinicians to establish and escalate any concerns relating to the deceased death. Working with medical examiners to aid them in their responsibility for overseeing the death certification process for the deceased in the organisation and the non-acute sector; To demonstrate integrity and apply the principle of independence to the MEO role in the context of the provision of independent scrutiny of causes of death, the care before death, and facilitation of feedback from the bereaved; To establish the circumstances of the individuals death 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. To highlight to the Medical Examiner any inconsistences or areas of concern noted; To utilise the Trusts data systems and those of community partners to access all relevant records including the PAS and Pathology systems; To utilise and maintain the Medical Examiner Service database and support the implementation of the National Medical Examiners data base; To work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders for the purposes of ensuring statutory requirements are maintained; To assist in highlighting cases for assessment/learning to the appropriate governance systems e.g. Structured Judgement Review team (SJR), Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP), Clinical Governance teams and the Learning Disability Review Teams (LeDeR); To 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 be aware of the Safeguarding Adult and Child frameworks and processes and liaise as required; To be able to work on his/her own initiative, referring to the LMEO when necessary.
To refer the deceased to the coroner for further investigation on approval by the medical examiner; Please see attached job description for further information

Please refer the Job description for details