Chamber and committees

The Mortuary Review Group made 13 recommendations in its report published in January 2018 which were grouped into the following categories - Roles and Responsibilities, Mortuary Provision, Contracts, Facilities and Quality Improvements. Responsibility for implementing the majority of the recommendations rests with Health Boards, Local Authorities, Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, so it is necessary to create a framework and reporting mechanism that allows progress to be visible to the Scottish Government.

We are therefore working with Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), who will follow their recently established Quality of Care Approach, to deliver quality assurance activity that drives improvement in mortuary services. HIS are testing the new methodology to deliver quality assurance activity this year with a phased roll out in secondary healthcare settings and independent hospitals. This framework will allow us to demonstrate quality improvement and best practice in mortuary services.

In addition, Health Facilities Scotland published Scottish Health Planning Note 16-01 in November 2017 which provides facility guidance for mortuary and post mortem services’ premises in Scotland, to support public bodies to design new buildings, adapt or extend existing buildings and assess the standards of existing facilities consistently.