The petition of residents of the Birmingham Hodge Hill constituency,
Declares that there are too often delays in allowing burials within 24 hours in Birmingham; further that other cities have much better facilities; further that Birmingham has one of Britain’s biggest Muslim communities and therefore should have better services; and further that a local petition on this matter was signed by 1,572 individuals.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to improve burial services in Birmingham, including providing 24/7 access to coroners and health professionals who can certify and register deaths, access to MRI scanners to expedite post mortem procedures where necessary and a review of rising burial costs in Birmingham with a view to reducing charges.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Liam Byrne, Official Report, 16 September 2015; Vol. 599, c. 1156.]
[P001544]
Observations from The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Women, Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage): The Government have the following observations to make:
Coroners are a local service funded by the relevant local authority, with coroner’s officers in the main provided by the police.
The Ministry of Justice has responsibility for coroner law and policy, however, and successive Justice Ministers have worked with the Chief Coroner to improve coroner services generally. The Secretary of State for Justice and I have met representatives of the Muslim and Jewish communities and are sympathetic to the concerns they have expressed.
We are committed to making sure bereaved people are at the very heart of the coroner system. Coroners understand and should be sensitive to the fact that some faiths have religious or cultural wishes about burial following a death, and should always seek to take these wishes into account. On 15 October we launched a post implementation review of the coroner reforms implemented in 2013 and we look forward to receiving responses from interested stakeholders and members of the public, including views on the availability of out-of-hours services. The review is open until 10 December 2015 and is available here: https://www.consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/post-implementation-review-of-coroner-reforms.
Under coroner legislation coroners are required to be available at all times to address matters relating to an investigation into a death which must be dealt with immediately and cannot wait until the next day. In practice, this is limited to matters relating to homicides, mass fatalities and organ and tissue donation. Furthermore, the provision of an out of hours service, particularly at weekends, requires the availability not only of coroner’s officers but pathologists, mortuary staff and registrars, none of whom are under the coroner’s control.
The Chief Coroner issued guidance to coroners in May 2014 on their legal duties to deal with urgent matters out-of-hours.
A post-mortem examination may be conducted to assist the coroner in establishing the cause of death and the coroner may specify the kind of examination to be made. In some cases it may be possible to establish a cause of death by way of a less invasive examination (such computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning). Sometimes a less invasive PM provides the answer to the medical cause of death. Where it does not, there will still have to be an invasive post mortem.
The Chief Coroner has issued guidance to coroners encouraging the use of CT or other imaging where available and urging them to bear in mind the wishes of the bereaved family where possible.
Recently I met representatives of those responsible for providing coroner services, namely local authorities and the Police, to discuss the provision of an appropriate level of out-of-hours coroner service across London. Some coroner areas in London and in other cities are already providing an out-of-hours service and we see no reason why this should not be replicated elsewhere.
I would emphasise that our intention is to improve coroner services generally. The availability of an out-of-hours service will benefit the whole community, not just those of a particular faith.
The Birmingham and Solihull Senior Coroner has informed the Ministry of Justice that she has provided an out-of-hours service in her area since she took up post in November 2013. Her offices are open between 10 a.m. and 12 noon at weekends and bank holidays when orders to enable bodies to be taken out of the UK for burial (or cremation) abroad are issued.
Burial services are provided on a local basis, mainly by local authorities but also privately. Government policy is to enable local authorities to make their own funding decisions based on local needs as local areas are best placed to commission services which affect local people.