Just what will review achieve?

It’s a tough job being a coroner but also a crucially important one. Balancing the interests of justice with those of relatives in extremely sensitive circumstances is never easy so to say the service is not running smoothly overlooks the complexity of the situation.

As reported this week, Kent County Council is to investigate the county’s coroners service in the face of claims it’s taking too long to hold inquests and carry out post mortems.

The authority pays £3.4million annually for the service and when you consider what we get in return and the astronomical cost of other public bodies, that seems more than reasonable.

Thanks to the coroners service hundreds of families receive answers following wholly professional and extraordinarily in-depth investigations by dozens of highly qualified experts.

Yes, sometimes inquests take far too long and reports aren’t filed on time but its seldom as a result of shoddy administration on the part of the coroner’s office, rather it is the fault of other bodies or individuals called to give evidence.

Indeed, sometimes it is no one’s fault and the coroner is the most frustrated person as they concede defeat and push a hearing back by several months in the interests of justice.

This week one assistant coroner described getting half a dozen doctors in a room at the same time as “like trying to herd cats,” as she was forced to delay an inquest by another five months after an NHS trust left it to the last minute to tell a doctor its legal team would not be representing them.

When you compare it to the county’s chaotic court system you’re left wondering exactly what a review will achieve.