Reviews failed to aid coroner service
Reviews which failed to deliver improvements to a Yorkshire coroners’ service over several years has been listed as one of the reasons for falling staff morale and a rise in sickness rates.
A SERIES of reviews which failed to deliver any improvements to a Yorkshire coroners’ service over several years has been listed as one of the reasons for falling staff morale and a sharp rise in sickness rates.
Work is currently going on to improve the effectiveness of Bradford and Wakefield Coroners’ Offices, with extra staff being recruited, after a police review identified a host of problems at the service, which investigates deaths in West Yorkshire.
The review, written in December and obtained by The
Yorkshire Post using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), reveals an alarming spike in sickness rates at the service’s Eastern office in Wakefield, as well as a general lack of training and outdated working practices.
One passage in the West Yorkshire Police review says: “A number of reviews of the Coroners’ Office have taken place over the last several years, with no real evidence of any significant improvements actually being delivered.
“This has been reported as a contributory factor to a reduction in staff morale and current levels of sickness, particularly in respect of the Eastern Office.”
In February, The Yorkshire Post revealed that Wakefield Coroner’s Court had been forced to draft in extra workers from other parts of the region after staff shortages left a backlog of more than 100 cases waiting to be looked into.
The police review said: “Staff have raised concerns that they do not feel their current staffing levels are sufficient to meet the demands placed upon them, nor is there any provision to backfill for abstractions.”
According to David Hinchliff, the senior coroner based in Wakefield, extra resources put in by police this year have since resulted in a significant improvement.
The 57-page report says the Western coroner’s office, based in Bradford, dealt with 3,114 deaths in 2015 and the Eastern Area 3,813, among the 500,000 deaths registered in England and Wales every year.
It said sickness levels rose sharply last year, with more than 370 working days lost in the Wakefield office up to September, compared with just 20 in the Bradford office.
Between 2012 and 2016, the
370 The number of days lost to sickness in the Wakefield coroner’s office in the first nine months of 2016.
Eastern office lost 904 days to sickness, 11 per cent of the total, while the Western office lost 273, a rate of 3.3 per cent. The national average is 3.21 per cent.
During the review, which relates to the services provided by police to the coroner’s office, and not administrative functions carried out by council staff, employees were interviewed and data about the coroner’s service analysed.
Among the issues that emerged was that the Lotus Notes database used to record staff actions “is outdated, unreliable and provides no management information”.
The report said: “Working practices are outdated, predominantly paper based, with photocopying and faxing being common systems to transfer information. Statements are taken in longhand, before being typed. Little use is currently made of existing technology.”
It added: “Training is sparse, the majority of which is undertaken ‘on the job’. No reference manuals or visual aids appear to exist.”
The West Yorkshire Police review was completed last December. After The Yorkshire Post requested a copy of the document under the FOIA in March, it was disclosed four and a half months later in late July. Public authorities must respond to FOI requests within 20 working days.