Coroners to be given more powers plan

Published: 06 November 2021

Plans to give coroners power to investigate stillbirths 'stall' - more than two years after government consultation

The government has blocked moves to investigate stillbirths, it has emerged
Ministers previously promised to look

Plans to give coroners power to investigate stillbirths 'stall' - more than two years after government consultation

The government has blocked moves to investigate stillbirths, it has emerged
Ministers previously promised to look at crucial maternity safety issues
Former health minister Jeremy Hunt has assured people things are very good

By Mail on Sunday Reporter

Published: 01:32, 7 November 2021 | Updated: 01:37, 7 November 2021

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Vital plans to give coroners the power to investigate stillbirths have ‘stalled’ – more than two years after a Government consultation closed.

Since June 2019, Ministers have been promising to reveal if they will press ahead with the move, which campaigners say is crucial to improve safety in hospital maternity departments.

Since then the NHS has been rocked by two baby-death scandals at hospitals in Kent and the West Midlands and a study that found evidence that stillbirths almost doubled during the Covid lockdown. MPs on the House of Commons Justice Committee said they were ‘disappointed’ the consultation ‘appears to have stalled’ and said it should be revived.

Last night, former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘We have made huge progress in reducing stillbirths but it is a manifest injustice that coroners cannot investigate them. This must not be put on the back burner.’

In 2015, The Mail on Sunday launched a campaign to give coroners legal powers to investigate late-term stillbirths.