Under Regulation 29 of The Coroners (Investigations) Regulations 2013, individuals or organisations who receive Prevention of Future Deaths reports (PFDs) must respond to the coroner within 56 days, outlining actions taken or proposed to prevent future deaths. The response may then be uploaded to the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website.
Using data from 12 September 2021, we analysed the response rates of individuals and organisations who received PFD reports. Overall:
- 38% (n=1416) of PFDs do not have a response uploaded,
- 62% (n=2293) have received at least one response, and
- 37% (n=1368) have received the expected number of responses or more.
The expected number of responses was calculated by finding the number of recipients of a report. In some cases, interested parties not initially named as respondents also respond. Due to the absence of machine-readable data, it is difficult to devise more informative schemas that remain robust.