Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the policy is of the Bradford coroner on the use of digital scans to establish cause of death rather than tradition post-mortems; and how many times such scans have been used in (a) 2017 and (b) 2018 to date.

The use of digital scans to establish cause of death is a matter for individual coroners who decide how to proceed in light of guidance from the Chief Coroner. The guidance can be found on his website at:

www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/guidance-no-1-use-of-port-mortem-imaging.pdf

The figures for the number of post mortems held in 2017 which involved less invasive techniques are available at:

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/706047/coroners-statistics-2017-csvs.zip.

Bradford is in the West Yorkshire (western) coroner area, in which 267 less-invasive post mortems were conducted in 2017.

Annual coroner statistics are collected at the end of the year. Statistics for 2018 will be published in May 2019.