COUNCILLORS have welcome a fall in the number of families waiting to learn how their loved ones died.
The backlog of cases at Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire’s joint coroners service has fallen from 672 in February to 606, with the number above the six-month statutory time limit for an inquest dropping from 260 to 240.
Last year, elected members at Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Staffordshire County Council – which jointly fund the service – agreed a £519,000 boost for new staff to increase capacity.
As a result, a new full-time area coroner started work in June and officials believe the service is currently on track to cut the backlog “considerably” by the end of the financial year.
Joint coroners committee member Cllr Sarah Hill said:
“I’m really pleased about the work to reduce the backlog because of how stressful the wait can be – I know from personal experience when we had to wait nearly 12 months for an inquest
“It’s sitting with you all the time, this unfinished business that you need to know.”
One of the factors behind the growth of the inquest backlog in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire is the high number of prisons in the county.
The committee heard that deaths behind bars usually take much longer to deal with, as they can involve criminal investigations and other court cases, with the inquests themselves typically lasting two weeks.
As of 1st August, there were nine open cases involving a death in state detention, along with 30 awaiting the outcome of a police investigation.
Senior coroner Andrew Barkley said that the numbers alone did not tell the full story of the service’s performance:
“While quite rightly we look at figures – and we are acutely mindful of any delay – at the same time we have to provide meaningful investigations as to how someone passed away.
“It is not simply saying ‘here is a cause of death’, and we can get to that answer very quickly by calling one witness.
“With an elderly person in a care home we need to look at the care records, the hydration charts – have they died due to a failure of care? If there are justifiable family concerns, those need to be investigated too and that takes resource and time.
“So it’s the quality of the investigation that matters, and not just the headline figures.”
The committee also heard that the coroners service is currently projected to underspend its £2.88million budget for 2025-26 by £64,000, following a £51,000 overspend last year, due to delays in recruitment to vacant posts.