IHRD-87 Response Accepted

Independent Medical Examiner

Recommendation

The Department should now institute the office of Independent Medical Examiner to scrutinise those hospital deaths not referred to the Coroner.

Published Evidence Summary
The following publicly available evidence relates to this recommendation:
Government response: Accepted. Last substantive update was January 2024. No recent public evidence of further progress.
Sources
Government response (2018-03-01): Accepted Source: https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/topics/ihrd-implementation-programme Text: Prototypes to determine the most appropriate way to operate such a service are progressing. Learning will inform proposals for an IME service in Northern Ireland. Progress update (2024-01-31): In Progress Implementation status based on Department of Health NI Implementation Programme updates. Source: https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/topics/ihrd-implementation-programme
How was this evidence gathered?
Evidence searched by baseline-data-v1 on 26 May 2026
Checked data held on this site (government responses, progress updates, independent evidence)
External sources searched: www.health-ni.gov.uk
Jurisdiction
Northern Ireland
Response
Accepted
Accepted Department of Health NI
01 Mar 2018

Prototypes to determine the most appropriate way to operate such a service are progressing. Learning will inform proposals for an IME service in Northern Ireland.

Read Full Response
Published Evidence

Published assessments of progress from inspectorates, select committees, official progress reports, and other sources. Source type badge indicates whether each assessment is independent or government self-reported.

Reasonable Progress
06 Feb 2026
Department of Health NI Other

Independent Medical Examiner service piloted in NI hospitals but not statutory and not fully rolled out. NI is excluded from England/Wales statutory provisions.

View detailed findings

England and Wales made their medical examiner system statutory from September 2024 (all deaths must be reviewed by either a medical examiner or coroner). NI is explicitly excluded from these provisions. NI has been running a pilot but full rollout would require legislative change which requires a functioning Executive. The IHRD Workstream 2 Death Certification Implementation Working Group has an IME Subgroup, but full statutory implementation remains pending.

IHRD Implementation Programme - Workstream 2 View Source
Source
Inquiry Hyponatraemia Inquiry
Report Report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths 31 Jan 2018
View Source
Responsible Bodies
Department of Health NI Primary
Themes & Tags
Patient safety governance Quality and safety oversight Medical Examiners Death Certification Oversight
Recommendation age 8.3 yrs
Last formal update 851 days ago