Digital Autopsy UK: Inside the Sheffield company seeking to tackle 'postcode lottery' of death investigations

My answer to the firm’s chief technology officer is ‘Not particularly’ but walking into the CT scan control room is still something of a shock.

As radiographer Alhamna Jabin assesses information on her computer screens, on the other side of a glass window is a scan machine with a body covered in a sheet lying inside.

Jabin explains the man in the machine was a 78-year-old who had been found dead in a chair at home with her assessments of the scanned images in progress to help determine what his cause or causes of death were.

Jabin says while the job involves dealing with some sad cases, especially when assessing suicides of young people, her and other team members also take great professional pride in being able to help grieving families to understand what has happened to their loved ones.

“I qualified as a radiographer three-and-a-half years ago and worked in the NHS but always wanted to get into forensics,” she says.

“I really enjoy helping to find out causes of death and helping families.”

In our modern world where the physical facts of death remain under-discussed and something of a taboo, even when their body is being handled in a dignified manner with the covering of the sheet it is somewhat jarring to be confronted by the realities of a person’s passing.

But the statistics bear out the reality that many of us and our loved ones will eventually require a post-mortem examination.

In 2022, 43 per cent of the 90,191 deaths reported to coroners required a post-mortem and fewer than half of all deaths around the country required neither a post-mortem or an inquest.

With deaths typically rising in the winter months, the country suffering from a shortage of pathologists as well as faiths such as Islam and Judaism stressing quick burials and non-violation of the body, the service provided by Digital Autopsy UK has several benefits.

In the substantial majority of cases, it avoids the need for bodies to be dissected for examination as happens in a traditional autopsy – although in more complex cases the more invasive process may still be required.

Healy says the company set a 75 per cent benchmark to establish cause of death and mean further intervention is not required, with the current figure around 86 per cent.

By being quicker than a traditional autopsy, it also allows bodies to be released back to grieving loved ones more quickly.

The process can typically take between 20 to 40 minutes compared to a traditional post-mortem which may take a couple of hours.

The firm aims to produce reports for coroners within 24 hours of an assessment taking place.

Digital Autopsy UK is a relatively new name for the company after Healy and fellow director Darren Brown, the firm’s CEO, conducted a management buyout late last year. But it has had a presence in Sheffield since 2013 after opening its facility in the city under its old name iGene.

Their process involves a CT scan of a body before their patented technology – which was originally developed in Malaysia – creates a 3D image of the body enabling a specialist radiologist to conduct a post-mortem.

The company has expanded to have three other sites across the UK and works with multiple local authorities – but its pace of growth has not been quite as quick as anticipated in 2013 when there was talk of opening a total of 18 centres by the end of 2018.

Healy says they are hoping to reach more agreements with local authorities, which help pay for services, and coroners in place.

“We are quite a disruptive technology because the process hasn’t been changed for hundreds of years but the only changes are the methods of the post-mortem.

“The key for us is to deal with the deceased person in a dignified way and try to get the best result to finish as quickly as possible.

“The UK coronial system is world-renowned. We deal with 180 to 200 cases a week across four centres – Sheffield, Stoke, Sandwell and Preston.

“Coroners have to buy into the technology and see it as the way forward.

“We work with local authorities to make it cost-neutral. It still feels a bit like a postcode lottery. We are in Yorkshire and hope to be used all over but currently we are only serving South Yorkshire.

“We feel the service should be available to everyone in Yorkshire and throughout the country.

“We have got four sites and we would like to get to at least 12 or 15 as soon as possible.”

The company’s assessments have also been used in court cases and Healy says there are hopes that the service could be rolled out across the world.

But their current focus is on building up their presence in the UK - as emphasised by the recent name change.

Healy says: “Sometimes family members worry a lot about their loved ones having invasive procedures. That is taken away with a CT scan.

“We want to establish a national network across the country and allow all residents to have access to this service.

“It is a specialised service and we can get results for the families.

“We are now scanning in Sheffield, Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham and out of Yorkshire into Chesterfield.

“We are hopefully wanting to be the first-line intervention so that bodies can be released back to relatives quicker and provide a leaner, efficient service for the system.”

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