Chief Nurse responsible for mortuary assurance

Today I am updating the House on the response to those recommendations. The Trust published an assurance statement in February 2024 on the implementation of the recommendations from the Phase 1 report. This sets out the progress made to implement the Inquiry’s recommendations.

The range of actions taken by the Trust include requiring that non-mortuary staff and contractors are always accompanied by another staff member when visiting the mortuaries; controlling access to mortuaries using swipe cards; mandating contractors to renew security clearances every three years; and installing CCTV coverage monitoring access to and from mortuary areas. The Trust Board is also providing greater oversight and assurance of legally regulated activity in the mortuary.

I am also reassured that NHS England’s South East regional team held monthly oversight meetings with the Trust between November 2023 and April 2024 (in partnership with Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board) to ensure progress against the Inquiry’s recommendations and to review evidence of the Trust’s progress in delivering their action plan. Ongoing compliance with the Inquiry's recommendations will be monitored by NHS England through regular regional oversight meetings with the Trust, and through other channels as appropriate.

The Trust now complies with this recommendation in full on the following basis:

• In relation to making the responsibility explicit, the Chief Nurse's Job Description has been amended to state that they are “…responsible for assuring the Trust Board that mortuary management is delivered in such a way that it protects the security and dignity of the deceased.”.

• In relation to implementing that responsibility, an additional “Care After Death (Security and Dignity of deceased patients)” workstream has been established under the End of Life Care Steering Committee (which is chaired by the Chief Nurse and meets every two months). The new workstream is led by the Head of Service for the Care After Death Directorate and involves liaison with a range of staff and departments, in addition to the mortuary i.e. security, the Divisional Directors of Nursing & Quality etc.

• The new workstream submits reports to the End of Life Care Steering Committee (as is the case with the Steering Committee’s other workstreams), and some initial indicators have been agreed. These include Serious Incidents (SIs) and HTARIs; patient volumes; security audit findings; patient condition audit findings; family viewing numbers; complaints, feedback about the service (positive and negative) and Freedom of Information Act requests.

No statement on delivery from Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust has been found in the sources searched. This is separate from the response above.