Part 6: Miscellaneous Medical Examiners Section 169: Medical Examiners
This section makes a number of amendments to Part 1, Chapter 2 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (Notification, certification, and registration of deaths) and an amendment to both the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 and the 2012 Act.
	Subsection (1) inserts sections 18A (Medical examiners: England) and 18B (Medical Examiners: Wales) into the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
	Section 18A contains four subsections, 18A(1) to 18A(4).
	Section 18A(1) introduces a power for English NHS bodies to appoint medical examiners.
	Section 18A(2) introduces a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that enough medical examiners are appointed in the healthcare system in England, that enough funds and resources are made available to medical examiners to enable them to carry out their functions of scrutiny to identify and deter poor practice, and to ensure that their performance is monitored.
	Section 18A(3) introduces a power for the Secretary of State to give a direction to an English NHS body in order to: require the body to appoint one or more medical examiners; set out the funds or resources that should be made available to such employed medical examiner; set out the means and methods that may be employed to monitor performance of medical examiners.
	Section 18A(4) defines English NHS body for the purposes of section 18A as:
NHS England;
an integrated care board;
a NHS Trust;
a Special Health Authority; or
a NHS Foundation Trust.
	Section 18B contains three subsections, 18B(1) to 18B(3).
	Section 18B(1) introduces a power for Welsh NHS bodies to appoint medical examiners.
	Section 18B(2) introduces a duty on Welsh Ministers to ensure that enough medical examiners are appointed in the healthcare system in Wales, that enough funds and resources are made available to medical examiners to enable them to carry out their functions of scrutiny to identify and deter poor practice, and to ensure that their performance is monitored.
	Section 18B(3) defines a Welsh NHS body for the purposes of section 18B as:
a Local Health Board;
a NHS Trust; or
a Special Health Authority.
	Subsection (2)(a) amends the heading of section 19 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to "Medical Examiners: supplementary".
	Subsection (2)(b) removes subsections 19(1) and (2) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, which previously made provision for local authorities in England, and Local Health Boards in Wales, to appoint persons as medical examiners.
	Subsection (2)(c) amends section 19(5) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to provide that nothing in sections 18A, 18B or 19 of that Act provides English or Welsh NHS bodies any role in relation to the way in which medical examiners exercise their professional judgment as medical practitioners.
	Subsection (3) amends section 20(5) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (Medical certificate cause of death), which provides a power to make regulations requiring a fee to be payable in respect of the medical examiner’s confirmation of cause of death. The amendment will require any such fee to be payable to an English or Welsh NHS body.
	Subsection (4) amends Section 48(1) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (Interpretation: general) to provide that the definition of a medical examiner is a person appointed under Section 18A or 18B.
	Subsection (5) amends section 41(1) of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 to provide that the definition of medical examiner in that Act has the same meaning as section 48(1) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
	Subsection (6) amends the 2012 Act removing the provision which inserted references to English local authorities initially into the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.