Timestamp summary
0.18–1.42 mins Who are the Coroners Court Support Service and what do they do
1.43–3.49 mins What do families think and feel about the inquest process and hearings
3.50–5.29 mins What rights do families have within the inquest process
5.30–6.17 mins What do families expect from the inquest process and what is their role
within it
6.18–9.44 mins How should medical witnesses give evidence and interact with the family
9.45–11.07 mins Meeting with the family prior to inquest
Introduction
I’m Beverly Radcliffe. I’m the director
of the coroner's court support service and we are a charity whose trained volunteers
support people when they attend inquests at the coroner's courts.
0.18–1.42 mins
So, the people that we support at inquests
are families, but they're also witnesses and anybody else that needs our
support. And support can mean many different things to different people
depending on what their needs are on the day. So, we can give them emotional
support around the inquest and bereaved families are often emotionally charged
in that environment, and we can also offer practical information, so, that's
around the remit of an inquest - what the process will be, what will happen on
the day; and I think a lot of people who attend an inquest don't really know
about an inquest, about what to expect on the day, and what their rights are
within that inquest process.
I think families before the inquest can
receive support from the coroner’s office but that support is very limited and
tends to be of a factual nature. We are able to support lots of people in lots
of coroner’s courts but we are only in about half of the coroner’s courts
within England and Wales and that’s purely down to funding. Out of choice we
would be a national service and so people, it doesn’t matter where they attend
the coroner’s court for the inquest, we would be there to support them. We do
have a national helpline and can support them over the telephone but we only
have a limited number of resources around the country at the actual coroner’s
court.
1.43–3.49 mins
I think when people attend, particularly
bereaved families, they don't really know what to expect when they attend an
inquest. They may have seen things on the television, but that might be things
like ‘Silent Witness’, which doesn't bear any resemblance to what actually
happens at an inquest at the coroner's court in England and Wales. So, they
have very mixed expectations about what's going to happen on the day. If they
have had contact with our organization before they attend the inquest, they
will know what the remit and the process will be because we can explain that to
them, but often if they arrive without any expectations at all or have no prior
knowledge about what to expect, they may think of it as a criminal court because
they hear the word court, coroner's court, and think of all the things that
relate to a criminal court. So, their understanding might be that it would be
quite intimidating, quite daunting, maybe quite challenging, adversarial, that
sort of thing, all the things that conjure up the word ‘court’ when they
attend, and a coroner's court isn't like a criminal court.
I think when bereaved families attend the inquest, they may be feeling lots of different things. Often, they will be very
emotionally charged because they are grieving. They are trying to grieve the
death of a loved one and they are trying to do that at the same time as make
sense of what's happening, why there was a need for an inquest, what is an
inquest and sometimes they find it difficult to assimilate that information,
not because they wouldn't normally be able to take that information in, but I
think sometimes when people are thrown into such an alien environment and they
are grieving at the same time, information just does not go in in the same way and so I think people really struggle with understanding
what's happening.
3.50–5.29 mins
Some members of the family will have certain
rights when they attend an inquest at the coroner's court. So, the next-of-kin
have the right to disclosure, but we would always say to the family, what's
disclosure, because the family may not understand what disclosure is, and
that's about certain reports and statements that the coroner is going to rely upon to use within the coroner's court and at the inquest. So, the next-of-kin can
ask for that disclosure and we would suggest that when they receive it, to have
somebody with them to act as support because it can be quite emotionally
difficult to read the information surrounding somebody's death, and to have
somebody there to support them, things like the post-mortem report, that they
could take to their GP and ask the GP to read through it with them so that the
GP can explain any medical terms or any medical jargon that's within the
post-mortem report.
Also, that report can be quite distressing to read. I think
sometimes the post-mortem report goes into great detail about parts of the body
that have been examined and as a family member, that's a person that is being
talked about and being recorded and reported on and they are reading things
like the weight of the heart or the consistency of the liver, and I think that
can be incredibly distressing for family members to read that very clinical
medical term around the person who they loved.
5.30–6.17 mins
I think most families expect to get
answers from an inquest and that's the reason why the coroner will ask certain
witnesses to come to give evidence because the next-of-kin has a legal right
within that inquest process and one of those rights is that they can ask
witnesses questions. The questions should relate to the remit and the
procedures of an inquest, but they are able to ask questions. So, they can ask
those questions that they've had around, what happened to the person when they
died, but sometimes they have questions around why. Why did it happen. That
won't necessarily get answered because it's not about why, it's about how the
person died. They will get answers to the questions that they have around what
happened.
6.18–9.44 mins
I think when a doctor attends an inquest
it's really important for them to have a really good understanding of where
bereaved families are at when they attend, emotionally, because when somebody dies
in normal natural circumstances, that's a terrible thing, it's a shock and even
when it's expected, it's a shock to the system and that shock will probably last
quite a long time. Put yourself in the shoes of a bereaved family member. That
person will have put their grief on hold for many months until the inquest and even
beyond the inquest and so they are still within that grieving process, but in a
skewed sort of way. Sometimes it really complicates or halts the grieving process
and so people will feel very emotionally charged. When you ask them to attend
an inquest and they are hearing details again about how somebody's died, that
can put them right back to as though the person died yesterday. So, their
emotions are very, very high.
I think if I were going to give some top
tips to doctors or other medical professionals about how they could interact
with the family or be with the family when the inquest happens, is that they
would again be human. Put yourself into the shoes of the family person. What do
you think it's like for them attending the inquest? It's very difficult for the
family. Try and explain things in normal everyday language terms, break down medical
jargon, break down medical terms. Explain things in everyday ways if you can,
rather than explaining them in your professional capacity. Try and speak to
them as though you're speaking to a friend who's got no medical experience at
all.
And then speak to the family, directly speak to the family, give them eye
contact; be that human-being, that compassionate person and reach out to them
in a way that you may not have done so in the past because of your medical
background, and maybe even approach them after the inquest and say that you're
sorry for their loss, because I think sometimes that's all somebody wants, is
to hear somebody else say that they're sorry that somebody has died. You're not
admitting guilt. You're not saying I'm to blame, you're far from saying that,
but what you are saying is that you are a compassionate person and that you are
sad for somebody else going through such a difficult time.
When somebody is shuffling lots of
papers in the witness box or saying I'm not sure about that or I can't remember,
then I think that really does make the family think that that person doesn't
really know anything about what happened or that the person, the loved one, was
forgotten because they don't even remember the case and referring to them as a
case, as opposed to a person, again, has an impact on the family. Whereas, if
you talk about Fred who died or Mabel who died or whoever, then it can make
them think, make the family think, that you are dealing with the only person
that they cared about as a person, as a human-being.
9.45–11.07 mins
If a death has been referred to the coroner
and there will be an inquest, then I think the trust and the doctors that were
involved should offer the family a meeting, even before the inquest date has
been discussed, to talk to them about what happened. Sometimes that will answer
all the questions that the family might have, even before it even gets near to
the inquest, and that might be soon after the death, but I think it should also
happen or be offered at different times before the inquest because if it
happens soon after the death, the family may still be grieving.
They may still
feel find it difficult to assimilate some of the information or the information
may bring up even more questions. So, offering more than one meeting, I think,
will really, really help and ease some of the tensions that sometimes happens
once it gets to the inquest, and those questions haven't already been answered
or those meetings haven't been offered. I think it's really, really important
and I've heard family say, you know, we asked for a meeting, but they didn't
give us a meeting or we wanted to speak to them beforehand or we had lots of
questions beforehand that they just ignored or they just didn't respond to, and
I think that would really alleviate a lot of the tensions beforehand.