The mission of the Preventable Deaths Tracker is to use coronial data to save lives by minimising preventable deaths.
The Preventable Deaths Tracker shares the first and only centralised database of all published coroner reports in England and Wales. Our work involves three main areas:
- we conduct systematic and bespoke research studies;
- we provide data and build tools for rapid analytics and statistics; and
- we deliver education and training.
Why is this important?
One in five deaths are avoidable every year. Yet, there is no system in place to investigate these deaths.
Bereaved families and friends want lessons to be learnt following inquests so that others don’t experience the same loss. However, less than 1% of all avoidable deaths and less than 2% of all inquests have a coroner report written.
As there is no one responsible for ensuring that reports are received, and responded to and that actions are taken and lessons are learnt, we created the Preventable Deaths Tracker.
Our team
The Preventable Deaths Tracker was launched in 2020 by Dr Georgia Richards with support from a team of academics, scientists, epidemiologists, healthcare professionals, and a practising coroner.
Funding
We have no core funding, all time spent on improving and updating the Preventable Deaths Tracker is voluntary or self-funded by Dr Georgia Richards. You can support this work by becoming a paid subscriber on Substack and downloading the database.
Founder, Dr Georgia Richards, was awarded an Engagement and Dissemination grant (£795) and a Seedcorn grant (£2000) from NIHR SPCR to fund the initial web development in 2020-2021. NIHR SPCR has also funded two Summer Interns (2022, 2023) to work on the Tracker.