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.
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.