Supporting families in the Medical Examiner's Service
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring the experiences of families with the Welsh Medical Examiner’s Service in Wales.
IRAS ID
315308
Contact name
Kerry Jones
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The Open University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
HREC/4546/Jones, Open University Ethics application
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 21 days
Research summary
In April 2019 NHS Improvement announced a national programme to introduce a new medical examiner service in Wales within all acute hospital trusts to transform the way doctors and hospitals handle and learn from deaths and to drive improvements in care and experiences of bereaved people.
While the intention of the new service is to assist the bereaved by providing them with a space in which to air concerns they have about the care their relative received, the ways in which the changes have been communicated is adding confusion for bereaved families and that practical aspects of these changes are being underestimated or overlooked.
The proposed project will thus explore the experiences of bereaved families of this new service. There will be a particular focus on how the pandemic may have compounded or added to challenges of this new service in the Welsh Valleys which has one of the highest recorded death rates during the pandemic.
This is a qualitative study:
Sixteen-twenty participants aged over 18 will be recruited to take part in the interviews. The interview participants will be those who have engaged with the medical examiner’s service in the Welsh Valleys in the previous 24 months but 6 months after the death of a family member who died.
This study is funded by the Open University Covid-19 internal research grants.REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/WM/0005
Date of REC Opinion
20 Feb 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion