Is it time to bury outdated coroners’ service model, asks Veronica Cowan
The investigation into some deaths at Gosport War Memorial Hospital has shone a troubling light on the locally-funded coronial system in England and Wales: its life support should now be switched off and a tax-payer funded national service, with the funding, scrutiny, accountability and protection that implies be brought into existence.
The Gosport Panel noted that the senior coroner for Portsmouth East, David Horsley, planned to conduct inquests in only ten of 92 cases, against a background of concern about costs, and sought to persuade the Ministry of Justice to hold a public inquiry instead. At a meeting with the Department of Health and the Ministry of Justice, Horsley pointed to ‘extremely serious resource implications’ for the normal operation of the service in his district, amidst general agreement that the inquests would prove to be a ‘crushing expense for the Council’. Karen Murray, whose directorial brief included communities at Hampshire County Council, expressed ‘serious concerns’, given that the budget for the normal service was some £800,000 and the ten inquests would cost at least
