About the Preventable Deaths Tracker
We harness information from death investigations to drive action that saves lives.
Why do we need a Tracker?
One-fifth of deaths are deemed avoidable each year – that’s over 125,000 deaths in England and Wales. Coroners investigate these deaths, with approximately 37,000 inquests a year.
By law, coroners in England and Wales must write a report when they believe action should be taken to prevent future deaths. Yet, less than 1% of avoidable deaths and less than 2% of inquests have such reports written.
Organisations that receive reports must reply to the coroner within 56 days. Despite these laws, our work is the first to demonstrate that hundreds of reports, more than one-third, don’t have all responses published.
There was no system to collate, track, or learn from these deaths until the Preventable Deaths Tracker.
Our mission
The core purpose of the Preventable Deaths Tracker is to save lives by enabling learning from avoidable and premature deaths through evidence-based vigilance and prevention.
Our work
The Preventable Deaths Tracker is the first of its kind globally. It makes information from death investigations usable and accessible so that real-time analytics, statistics, and research can be systematically conducted, reproduced and replicated.
- Build tools: We automate the collection and analysis of information from coroners to provide databases and interactive dashboards.
- Track transparency: We create tracking systems to examine reports and organisational responses to coroners, ensuring open justice, shared learning & accountability.
- Conduct research: We have developed reproducible research methods that enable the surveillance and monitoring of safety concerns, which are widely published in academic journals & policy documents.
- Education: We train the next generation and build capacity to create future leaders in the field of death prevention. We also use our platform to raise public awareness of the death investigation system.
Our aims
- 1: Create robust and efficient systems for disseminating real-time analytics, statistics, and lessons from avoidable deaths.
- 2: Develop methods for identifying and monitoring safety signals and trends from coroners’ reports and organisational responses.
- 3: Use our research to provide an evidence base for improving the practice of death investigations, reviews, and policies that seek to minimise harm and prevent deaths.
Our team
Dr Georgia Richards
Founder & Director
Epidemiologist & Research Scientist | King’s Prize Fellow, King’s College London | Senior Associate Tutor, University of Oxford
Academic Advisory Board
The Preventable Deaths Tracker is used to conduct academic research, which is supported by experts in epidemiology, evidence-based medicine, evidence synthesis, pharmacology, toxicology, drug safety, clinical medicine, pharmacy, linguistics, open science, big data, analytics, forensics, medical law and coronial law.
Dr Jeffrey Aronson
Consultant Physician, Clinical Pharmacologist & Linguist
University of Oxford
Dr Richard Brittain
Medical Adviser & Assistant Coroner
Medical & Dental Defence Union of Scotland
Dr Caroline Copeland
Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology & Toxicology
King’s College London
Prof Anthony Cox
Professor in Clinical Pharmacy & Drug Safety, Registered Pharmacist
University of Birmingham
Dr Francesco Dernie
Resident Doctor in Internal Medicine & Academic Clinical Fellow in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics
St George’s Hospital, London
Prof Robin Ferner
Professor, Honorary Consultant Physician, Clinical Pharmacologist & Toxicologist
University of Birmingham
Prof Carl Heneghan
Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine, Clinical Epidemiologist & General Practitioner
University of Oxford
Gillian Mawdsley
Solicitor (Scotland) & Associate Lecturer in Law
The Open University
Research Team
The Preventable Deaths Tracker has had contributions and collaborations from many researchers and university students over the years, with the first members of staff joining in 2025 following support from the charity, Changing Ideas.
Jade Pullen
Research Assistant
King’s College London
Zuzanna Jankowska
PhD Student
University of Reading
Alice Gomersall
Clinical Psychology Doctoral Student
University of East London
Chinelo Nnadi
Research Assistant
King’s College London
Ioanna Gkertso
Undergraduate Research Fellow & Summer Intern
King’s College London
Eren Halil
Registered Pharmacist & Research Intern
King’s College London
Key milestones of the Preventable Deaths Tracker
Support the Preventable Deaths Tracker
If you or your organisation can provide sustainable funding for the Preventable Deaths Tracker, please do get in contact.