NHS patient deaths to be investigated by medical examiners

Full story in The Guardian, 11 June 2018

Medical examiners will investigate patient deaths in the NHS as part of changes to improve patient safety and protect medical staff from being criminalised for their mistakes.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, announced on Monday he was rolling out the appointment of the examiners across the service. The move comes after the case of Hadiza Bawa-Garba, a trainee paediatrician, convicted of gross negligence manslaughter and struck off following the death of a child in her care, Jack Adcock.

Medical professionals rallied to her cause, saying the real culprit was NHS understaffing not individual error.