Job summary
- Main area
- Medical Examiner
- Grade
- NHS Medical & Dental: Medical Examiner
- Contract
- Fixed term: 24 months
- Hours
- Part time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 393-NMUH-5109
- Employer
- North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- North Middlesex University Hospital
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £101,694 - £134,126 per annum inclusive
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- Today at 23:59
Employer heading
Medical Examiner
NHS Medical & Dental: Medical Examiner
The North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust is a medium-sized acute and community trust with over 525 beds and over 600 community staff, serving more than 600,000 people living across Enfield and Haringey and the surrounding areas, including Barnet and Waltham Forest.
The hospital has been on its present site for over 100 years and was established as an NHS trust by statute in December 1990. The Trust’s services are provided on the North Middlesex University Hospital site as well as a range of community sites across the London Borough of Enfield, including at partner hospitals. They provide services in collaboration with a range of partners, including local GPs, acute, mental health and other community health service providers across North Central London.
In the year ending 31 March 2022, the Trust reported a turnover of £419.7m and employed almost 4,000 staff. Following the transfer of Enfield Community Services on 1st April 2023, this has increased as we have welcomed over 600 new staff including District Nurses, Community Matrons, Community Physiotherapists, Psychologists and many more across a wide range of adult and children’s community services in Enfield. It is an exciting time to join North Mid as we continue our journey to become an integrated care organisation to deliver high quality, seamless care in our local communities, with a focus on tackling health inequalities.
Job overview
We are seeking to appoint dynamic and enthusiastic doctors with at least five years’ experience as a fully registered medical practitioner to the role of Medical Examiner. The posts will be for 0.5 or 1PA (total available is 2PA) per week and may be worked on an annualised basis. The service is based at North Middlesex University Hospital and includes Haringey and Enfield community deaths.
The Medical Examiners are senior doctors who are expected to screen and review deaths (from the preceding weekend or working day) to an agreed policy and time frame. This will include liaising with the attending practitioners regarding cause of death and formulation of the MCCD, and with the Coroner where appropriate. The job description and person specification attached are modelled from the Royal College of Pathologists in line with a national requirement to develop a method for reducing inaccuracies in death certificates and achieving greater confidence in learning from deaths.
This independent service currently comprises seven Medical Examiners and three Medical Examiner Officers who combine clinical skills and compassion to engage with every bereaved family to answer the questions “why did the patient die?” and “can we learn from it?” Following review, cases are selected using the trust policy for further analysis using a Structured Judgement Review Process by the departmental team.
Main duties of the job
The Medical Examiner(s) are senior doctors who are expected to screen and review deaths (from the preceding weekend or working day) to an agreed policy and time frame. This will include liaising with the attending practitioners regarding cause of death and formulation of the MCCD, and with the Coroner where appropriate. The job description and person specification are modelled from the Royal College of Pathologists in line with a national requirement to develop a method for reducing inaccuracies in death certificates and achieving greater confidence in learning from deaths.
We have recently started our out of hours provision on weekend and bank holiday mornings. Participation on this rota is optional and will attract additional payment.
Candidates must have successfully completed the mandatory e-learning modules online (free of charge) by the time they start the role and attend a face-to-face training session at the Royal College of Pathologists, London, paid for by the Trust, within the first three months in post.
Working for our organisation
North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust is a medium sized Hospital based in Edmonton, Enfield, North London. We serve a diverse multicultural population from the London boroughs of Enfield and Haringey. Many of our patients live in wards that are within the 5% most deprived in the UK and a substantial proportion of our patients were born abroad. This makes it both a fascinating and challenging hospital to work in.
Over the last decade we have rebuilt almost all of the hospital and now have facilities that we are proud to work in. We employ over 3,500 staff, more than half of whom live locally. We are primarily an emergency led hospital with more that 90% of our bed days being used for patients admitted via our emergency and ambulatory units. As well as offering everything you would expect from a major acute hospital, we have a number of tertiary services treating patients with HIV, sickle Cell disease and a large cancer and radiotherapy service. We also run our local community sexual health clinics.
We are proud of our staff and want to ensure their training allows them to provide excellent clinical care. We are also a training unit for medical students from UCL and St George’s University Grenada, and for nursing and midwifery students from Middlesex and City Universities.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
To ensure compliance with the legal and procedural requirements associated with the current and proposed reformed processes of certification, investigation by coroners and registration of deaths.
To scrutinise the certified causes of death offered by attending doctors in a way that is proportionate, consistent and compliant with the proposed national protocol.
To discuss and explain the cause of death with next of kin/informants in a transparent, tactful and sympathetic manner. It is anticipated that such discussions will be predominately conducted through telephone conversations.
To ensure that all users of the Medical Examiner Service are treated with respect and are not discriminated against on the grounds of sex, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or disability.
To maintain comprehensive records of all deaths scrutinised and support analysis to provide information to the National Medical Examiner’s office.
To participate in relevant clinical governance activities relating to death certification including audits, mortality review processes and investigations regarding formal complaints about patient care.
To support the training of junior doctors in their understanding of death certification and promote good practice in accurate completion of MCCDs.
To work with medical examiner officers (MEOs), delegating duties as appropriate.
To engage with lead ME and lead MEO for the region.
To adopt a collaborative working relationship with other MEs by sharing experiences and expertise to support peer learning and set uniform standards of service delivery.
MEs will have professional independence in scrutinising deaths but will be accountable to the employing organisation’s Board for achieving agreed standards or levels of performance.
MEs will have an independent professional line of accountability to a regional structure of NHS Improvement/NHS England outside the employing organisation and immediate line management structure.
MEs will comply with guidance issued by the National Medical Examiner when carrying out ME duties.
MEs must avoid any potential conflicts of interest. In cases where they have a personal or professional relationship with the deceased person, next of kin/informant, or with the attending doctor preparing the MCCD, they must transfer any scrutiny of the death to another ME.
Person specification
Qualifications/Training
Essential criteria
- Registered with a licence to practice in the UK by the GMC.
- At least 5 years experience as a fully registered practitioner. Currently practicing or within 5 years of retirement.
- As a pre-condition of practicing, an ME must have successfully completed the mandatory components of the national online medical examiner curriculum.
- Face-to face training must be completed within the first three months of being in post.
Skills
Essential criteria
- MEs must have up-to-date knowledge of medical conditions and treatments and be able to exercise judgement about when to seek specialist advice.
- MEs must have detailed knowledge of the relevant legislation and processes which apply to:
- The determination of whether a death is natural or unnatural · Deaths that must be reported to the coroner
- Deaths abroad where bodies are returned to England and Wales for disposal
- Deaths where relatives wish to transport the body abroad for disposal
- Certifying and registering deaths and the regulations to authorise cremation or burials of stillbirths abroad.
Experience
Essential criteria
- At least 5 years experience as a fully registered practitioner. Currently practicing or within 5 years of retirement.
Personal Qualities
Essential criteria
- MEs should be aware of how their personal communication style impacts on others and be able to adapt their approach to suit a variety of situations and audiences.
- This will require: Self-awareness: an exceptional degree of sympathy, sensitivity and empathy in order to facilitate effective and supportive liaison with bereaved families.
- The ability to demonstrate and combine appropriate levels of compassion with professionalism and discretion
- Being open to constructive criticism, ideas and solutions
- Acting as a positive role model and interacting appropriately with all stakeholders including MEOs, other MEs, the bereaved and the coroner
- Having the integrity to gain trust and comply with the independent nature of the ME role in the context of other clinical specialty duties.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Rebecca Gillibrand
- Job title
- Lead Medical Examiner
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 020 8887 2838
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