Coroners and Justice Act 2009

19Medical examiners [F1: supplementary]E+W

This section has no associated Explanatory Notes

F2(1). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

F3(2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(3)A person may be appointed as a medical examiner only if, at the time of the appointment, he or she—

(a)is a registered medical practitioner and has been throughout the previous 5 years, and

(b)practises as such or has done within the previous 5 years.

(4)The appropriate Minister may by regulations make—

(a)provision about the terms of appointment of medical examiners and about termination of appointment;

(b)provision for the payment to medical examiners of remuneration, expenses, fees, compensation for termination of appointment, pensions, allowances or gratuities;

(c)provision as to training—

(i)to be undertaken as a precondition for appointment as a medical examiner;

(ii)to be undertaken by medical examiners;

(d)provision about the procedure to be followed in connection with the exercise of functions by medical examiners;

(e)provision conferring functions on medical examiners;

(f)provision for functions of medical examiners to be exercised, during a period of emergency, by persons not meeting the criteria in subsection (3).

(5)Nothing in [F4section 18A or 18B or] this section, or in regulations under this section, gives [F5an English NHS body (as defined by section 18A) or a Welsh NHS body (as defined by section 18B)] any role in relation to the way in which medical examiners exercise their professional judgment as medical practitioners.

(6)In this section “the appropriate Minister” means—

(a)in relation to England, the Secretary of State;

(b)in relation to Wales, the Welsh Ministers.

(7)For the purposes of this section a “period of emergency” is a period certified as such by the Secretary of State on the basis that there is or has been, or is about to be, an event or situation involving or causing, or having the potential to cause, a substantial loss of human life throughout, or in any part of, England and Wales.

(8)A certification under subsection (7) must specify—

(a)the date when the period of emergency begins, and

(b)the date when it is to end.

(9)Subsection (8)(b) does not prevent the Secretary of State certifying a new period of emergency in respect of the same event or situation.