Medical Examiners are senior medical doctors who are contracted to provide independent scrutiny of the causes of deaths not investigated by coroners, outside their usual clinical duties. They are trained in the legal and clinical elements of death certification processes. They have statutory responsibilities which are set out in regulations. Medical examiners:

• provide greater safeguards for the public by ensuring independent scrutiny of all non-coronial deaths

• ensure the appropriate direction of deaths to the coroner

• provide bereaved people with an opportunity to ask questions and raise any concerns to someone not involved in the care of the deceased

• improve the quality of death certification

• improve the quality of mortality data