Require every trust to provide a professional bereavement service and online information

The Index has not yet recorded a verbatim government response to this recommendation.

Please see our response to Recommendation 20 (PALS).

From 9 September 2024 the new statutory medical examiner system has been rolled out across England and Wales to provide independent scrutiny of deaths, and to give bereaved people a voice. It has been built on the initial introduction of medical examiners on a non-statutory basis from 2019/20.

The National Medical Examiner (NME) System has a role to play to help better inform the bereaved and provide them with an opportunity to raise concerns to a doctor not involved in the care of a patient that may have died. Medical examiners are supported by medical examiner offices and give bereaved people an opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns about care that had been provided before death.

As of June 2024, medical examiners have independently scrutinised over 900,000 deaths in England and Wales, supporting bereaved people and providing the public with greater safeguards through improved and consistent scrutiny of non-coronial deaths.

NHS Standard contract requires that every provider must implement policies and procedures for engaging with bereaved families and carers.

The Government agreed with this recommendation.

In its January 2002 response, the Department of Health said it was mapping the quality and quantity of bereavement services to determine where specific improvements were needed. The Department also said that work was progressing to develop a Code of Practice on communicating with families about post-mortems.