Coroners need some time off work, too

Firstly, the role of a coroner (usually a medical practitioner or a lawyer) is someone who presides at an inquest and inquires into the cause of accidental or suspicious deaths.

One assumes that in the case of Coun Riaz’s aunt, it may have been a sudden or unexpected death within 24 hours of being admitted to hospital which would be referred to the coroner as a matter of routine.

Secondly, in the UK, work patterns are essentially Monday to Friday 9am until 5pm. That’s how schools, hospital outpatients, some shops, tradesmen, etc, still work.

Even the Worcester News has a day off on a Sunday. As far as I’m aware, if someone dies in hospital on a Saturday you can’t pick up a death certificate until the following Monday and that’s how it has always been.

Why should it be any different now?

Being a coroner cannot be an easy job, they are just as entitled to a family life as everyone else.

If medical negligence contributed to the death or the aunt had a medical condition which may affect the rest of the family, wouldn’t Coun Riaz’s family want to know?

In all honestly, do we really need a coroner who is on call at the weekend for the sake of another 48 hours?

In these austere times would Conservative councillor Riaz and his family be prepared to pay for such a service and all that it entails because it wouldn’t just be the coroner involved would it?

Only recently, the coroner has been asked to reopen the files of a child who died at the Alexandra hospital in 2011 because someone isn’t happy with the coroner’s verdict given at the time.

The coroner is there for a reason, to ascertain given certain circumstances why someone may have died, perhaps preventing the same happening to someone else.

If only things could be as straight forward or as simple as Coun Riaz would wish.

MARY JONES Worcester

Editor’s note: A coroner has to be informed to see the death certificate and sign paperwork before a body is taken out of the UK for burial.