Medical Examiner Officer

Job description

Job responsibilities

Key Working Relationships:

Internal

Doctors

Medical Examiners

Medical Examiners officers.

Service managers, nurses, porters, ward clerks, clinical governance leads, infection control and mortuary staff.

PALS.

External

HM Coroner and officers.

Spiritual/Faith community leads.

Registrars of births and deaths.

GPs and practice staff.

Bereaved relatives, carers, executors and solicitors.

Funeral Directors.

National Medical Examiner.

Hospice teams.

Nursing and care homes.

Regional leads for ME and MEO system.

Bordering medical examining services and GP practices.

Risk Assessment:

There is significant emotional effort associated with dealing with bereaved families.

To use a computer for prolonged periods of time daily.

Most challenging part of the role:

Regular interaction with the bereaved relatives, in person or over the telephone.

The post holder must have the ability to demonstrate empathy and remain professional at all times.

Job Purpose:

To support medical examiners in their role of scrutinising the circumstances and causes of death.

To identify any potential issues with care and highlight any coroner referrals.

To be a link between the hospital and bereaved relatives and to communicate the documented cause of death, answer any questions and deal with any issues that may arise.

To be a point of contact and source of advice for relatives of deceased patients, healthcare professionals, coroner and registration services.

To coordinate the community referrals and assist the medical examiner with review of these cases.

Key Duties:

To link between bereaved relatives and clinicians to establish and resolve any concerns relating to a patients death.

To Work with the Medical Examiners to aid them in their responsibility for overseeing the death certification process, for all deceased patients in the organisation.

To establish the circumstances of individual patients deaths, by performing a preliminary review of the medical records. To identify clinical and circumstantial information, sourcing additional details where required for scrutiny by the Medical examiner.

To understand the process of death registration and be able to assist the medical teams with the completion of the required documents.

To identify coroner referrals and assist with this process.

To assist in highlighting cases for assessment by the Structured Judgement Review team (SJR), Child Death Overview Panel, Clinical Governance teams and the Learning Disability Review Teams (LeDeR).

To identifying and report any concerns/ issues via the DATIX incident reporting system and any positive feedback to the wards/ care settings.

To maintain an awareness of the diverse needs of users of the medical examiner system, to ensure equality to any group defined by sex, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or disability.

Leadership:

Demonstrates leadership through clinical expertise, delivering high standards of person-centred care.

Promotes a culture that supports and enables self-management.

Contributes to the delivery of specialist education and training to other professionals involved in patient care.

Supports and contributes to the development and promotion of the nursing service ensuring the delivery of high quality, cost-effective care.

Supports patient and public involvement within the sphere of practice.

Supports and contributes to quantitative and qualitative data collection of the nursing service in order to provide evidence of productivity, outcomes and quality. .

Supports and contributes to the implementation and monitoring of adherence to relevant clinical guidelines.

Takes professional responsibility for ensuring effective communication between all service providers across the care pathway.

Actively participates in multi-professional meetings, acting as patient advocate and representing nursing views.

Acts as a role model for excellent communication skills and expertise.

Develops skills in conflict resolution and negotiation skills when dealing with difficult or challenging situations.

Supports the development of patient focussed education, including training to self-manage ongoing consequences of treatment.

Innovation:

Develops new skills in response to emerging knowledge and techniques.

Supports with data collection and external reporting.

Works across professional boundaries using creative reasoning and problem-solving.

Supports and manages change within a complex environment.

Influences the development of others through education and training.

Develops and uses clinical expertise and experience to advance care.

Takes personal responsibility for life-long learning and personal development through clinical supervision, appraisal and Knowledge and Skills Framework and actively engages with the learning and development opportunities.

Excellence:

Puts quality at the heart of practice by delivering highly compassionate care to the bereaved, demonstrating excellent communication skills and sensitivity.

Actively integrates theory and practice.

Follows an agreed care pathway, refers to other professionals and signposts to other agencies as appropriate.

Promotes the service and clinical excellence by contributing to publishing and presenting innovations, audit and research locally, regionally and nationally.

Supports and contributes to the development of policy and clinical guidelines.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• GCSE or equivalent at grade A-C in Maths and English.
• Educated to degree level or equivalent.

Desirable

• Clinical experience,
• Bereavement experience,
• Advanced communication skills/ training.

Personal qualities

Essential

• Proactive and self-motivated.
• Ability to deal with complex and difficult emotional situations.
• Approachable and supportive to all levels of staff and bereaved families in a non-judgemental and discreet manner.
• Professional appearance, manner and awareness of impact of own behaviour on others.
• Ability to maintain a calm manner in a range of challenging and emotive circumstances.
• Ability to demonstrate Trust standard behaviours.
• Recognition of own limitations.
• Able to travel between sites.

Experience

Essential

• Full understanding of the medical examiner system operational remit when incorporated within Bereavement Services or as a stand-alone office .
• Experience of multi-professional working.
• Experience of teaching.
• Evidence of excellent communications skills.
• Ability to support and influence change.
• A commitment to learning and undertaking personal development opportunities.
• Evidence of continued professional development.
• The ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders, including the recently bereaved.
• Completed all e-learning MEO core training modules.
• Experience of working with people in sensitive and complex situations.

Desirable

• Experience of working in a healthcare setting with multi-disciplinary teams.
• Knowledge of the special requirements of various faith groups and respect for equality and diversity of issues around formalities following a death.
• Leadership and Management experience.
• Knowledge of the Coroner & Justice Act 2009 reference to the medical examiner system.
• Experience of working in a Medical Examiner Officer role.

knowledge and skills

Essential

• Strong interpersonal skills demonstrating the ability to communicate in difficult and emotional situations with empathy and professionalism with all stakeholders.
• Competent in the use of IT software systems and handling sensitive personal identifiable data.
• Teaching/assessment and presentation skills.
• Organisation and negotiation skills.
• Effective communication.
• Ability to motivate self and others.
• Ability to work autonomously and as part of a team.
• Flexible attitude to working.
• Exemplar written communication skills.

Desirable

• Leadership experience and motivational skills

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer details

Employer name

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Address

Charles Hastings Way

Worcester

Worcestershire

WR5 1DD

Employer's website

https://www.worcsacute.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)