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- evidence-based practice
- health care quality
- access
- and evaluation
- health services research
- patient care
- forensic medicine
Understanding the causes of deaths and how they can be prevented is critical for improving healthcare outcomes. At a population level, over-reporting or under-reporting of deaths can have a profound impact on policy decisions, which in turn affect global economies and the day-to-day lives of citizens. At the individual level, understanding how and why deaths occur may prevent similar deaths or serious harms from occurring in the future. One in 20 people are exposed to preventable harms in medical settings globally, and 12% of preventable harms result in disability or death.1
Coroners’ reports hold a wealth of information on the circumstances of individual deaths. In England and Wales, the law requires coroners to report and communicate a death when the coroner believes that action should be taken to prevent deaths.2 These reports, named Prevent Future Deaths (PFDs), are mandated under paragraph 7 of schedule 5 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, and regulations 28 and 29 of the Coroners (Investigations) Regulations 2013.3 4 Under these regulations, individuals or organisations that receive a PFD report are required under statue to respond to the coroner within 56 days of receiving the report, to outline actions proposed or taken to address the coroner’s concerns. The Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website hosts the PFD reports and responses to the reports.5
As these reports contain valuable lessons, concerns have been raised regarding …
Footnotes
Twitter @Richards_G_C, @JKAronson, @carlheneghan
Contributors All authors contributed to the idea for this editorial. GCR wrote the first draft. JA and CH revised and edited the manuscript. All authors read, reviewed and approved the final manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Disclaimer The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
Competing interests GCR is financially supported by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) School for Primary Care Research (SPCR), the Naji Foundation, and the Rotary Foundation to study for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the University of Oxford. GCR is the Editorial Registrar of BMJ Evidence Based Medicine. JA is an Associate Editor of BMJ Evidence Based Medicine; he has published articles and edited textbooks on adverse drug reactions and interactions and has often given medicolegal advice, including appearances as an expert witness in coroners’ courts. CH is Editor in Chief of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. CH is an NIHR Senior Investigator and has received expenses and fees for his media work (including payments from BBC Radio 4 Inside Health), received expenses from the WHO and FDA, and holds grant funding from the NIHR, the NIHR SPCR, the NIHR SPCR Evidence Synthesis Working Group (Project 380), the NIHR BRC Oxford and the WHO. CH has received financial remuneration from an asbestos case and given free legal advice on mesh cases. CH has also received income from the publication of a series of toolkit books published by Blackwells. On occasion, CH receives expenses for teaching EBM and is also paid for his GP work in NHS out of hours (contract with Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust). CH is Director of CEBM, which jointly runs the EvidenceLive/EBMLive Conference with the BMJ and the Overdiagnosis Conference with international partners, based on a non-profit making model.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
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