New Medical Examiner role introduced at first Quality Summit
UHDB has appointed our first ever Medical Examiners to look further into the causes of patients’ deaths across our hospitals and identify any improvements that could be made to the care we provide going forward.
The Medical Examiners will ensure that every patient death is scrutinised, in order to quickly establish a cause of death by providing and ensuring that the correct deaths are referred to the corner and that they are provided with the most accurate data possible to assist their enquiries.
In total, eight clinicians from separate specialties across UHDB have taken up the posts and will focus on what can be learned from cases to improve care, whilst also providing support to the bereaved family by speeding up the death certification process and answering any questions they might have.
Mr Colin Rogers, Lead Medical Examiner for the Trust, spoke to around 100 colleagues about the key benefits of the role during our first ever staff Quality Summit on Thursday 26 September, which focused on the continual learning and improvements UHDB can make around quality and patient safety.
He said: “We’re extremely excited to now be able to offer this much-overdue service at our Trust. The Medical Examiner role will allow us to greatly enhance the quality of death certification, so that we are able to collect robust and accurate diagnostic data that will help us in the future by identifying areas where we can improve the care we provide. Doing this will also allow us to ensure that the coroner is provided with all of the information that they need and enable bereaved families to gain the answers as to why their loved one passed away. We have to be able to get the causes of death right for all of our patients and this system will help us do that.”
UHDB has appointed eight new Medical Examiners in total:
- Mr Colin Rogers, Consultant Breast Surgeon, has been appointed as the Trust Lead ME
- Dr Anupam Agarwal, Consultant DME
- Dr Richard Faleiro, Consultant Anaesthetist and Pain Medicine
- Mr Nick Hurst, Consultant Surgeon
- Dr Liz Mullaney, Consultant Acute Physician
- Dr Zoe Pittman, Consultant Renal Physician
- Dr Paul Smith, Consultant in Critical Care
- Dr Maelie Swanwick, Consultant in Palliative Care
Following the success of this week’s Quality Summit at Queen’s Hospital Burton, the Trust also plans to hold another summit in March 2020 at the Royal Derby Hospital.