Medical Examiners
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to introduce national communication standards for Medical Examiner offices.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
The Medical Examiners Regulations introduced in September 2024 set out the requirements for medical examiners’ terms and conditions. This includes the requirement for the bereaved to be an offered an opportunity to discuss the death and to raise any concerns with the medical examiner who undertakes independent scrutiny of the proposed cause of death and will not have cared for the deceased.
Evidence from the National Medical Examiner (NME) report for 2025 shows that half a million bereaved families every year are now being given an opportunity to raise concerns and to ask questions about what caused the death of their loved ones, with 97% taking up this opportunity.
Existing NME guidance sets out the requirement that medical examiners, and their officers are expected to treat the bereaved with compassion. Feedback published in the NME report for 2025 indicates the bereaved welcome the care and compassion they receive from the medical examiner offices.
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