The National Health Service Trust (Scrutiny of Deaths) (England) Order 2021

Power to scrutinise deaths

3.—(1) An NHS trust in England may scrutinise the death of any person who has died in England where—

(a) a senior coroner is not under a duty to investigate the death under section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009(1), or

(b) it is unclear whether the death is one which a registered medical practitioner would be required to notify to the relevant senior coroner under the Notification of Deaths Regulations 2019(2).

(2) In paragraph (1), the reference to scrutinising a death is a reference to scrutiny carried out in accordance with “Implementing the medical examiner system: National Medical Examiner’s good practice guidelines”, published by NHS England and NHS Improvement in January 2020(3), and includes any review which forms part of the process of scrutinising a death under those guidelines.

(1)

2009 c. 25.

(2)

S.I. 2019/1112.

(3)

A copy of the guidelines is available at https://improvement.nhs.uk/documents/6398/National_Medical_Examiner_-_good_practice_guidelines.pdf. A hard copy may be obtained from NHS England, PO Box 16738, Redditch, B97 9PT.