Cash woes for £5m mortuary as medics reluctant to head west

The Public and Forensic Mortuary in Burnham Avenue, Bradford, was created with the intention of it carrying out all post mortem examinations for the West Yorkshire area.

But two years on the modern facility remains under used and is causing a financial headache for councils in Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale.

One reason for its creation was to end the difficulties of transporting bodies from West Yorkshire to Sheffield for forensic post mortems.

Since it opened in August 2009, post mortems at Bradford Royal Infirmary have been transferred to the new facility and in May last year it was agreed to transfer post mortems from Dewsbury and District Hospital and the wider Kirklees area.

Since the transfers there have been problems attracting post mortem work from both Wakefield and Leeds.

A Bradford Council report says: “The main difficulty has been securing use by David Hinchliff (coroner for Leeds and Wakefield) for his forensic and public mortuary work.

“Negotiations have been ongoing to secure agreement to use the Burnham Avenue facility for forensic post mortems for Wakefield and Leeds. These are around the unit cost for each forensic post mortem and it is hoped an agreement can be reached shortly as Mr Hinchliff has reiterated his commitment to using this facility for his forensic work.”

The report also makes clear that regular, non-forensic post mortems may not end up being carried out in Bradford because pathologists in Leeds are reluctant to travel away from their hospital base.

“With regard to the public post mortems in Wakefield and Leeds, the Coroner remains reluctant to transfer this work to Burnham Avenue. This is mainly due to difficulties in securing the commitment of pathologists at a Leeds teaching hospital to work at the new premises.”

The main reason for their reluctance is “due to the additional travel they would have to undertake to perform post mortems at Burnham Avenue, as opposed to continuing to undertake them at Leeds General Infirmary.”

The report adds: “These discussions will be revisited once the issues around forensic post mortems are resolved and the additional work proposed to transfer to the mortuary in 2012 from Huddersfield and Calderdale takes place.”

The under-use of the facility is having a knock-on effect on budgets controlled by the mortuary and by the coroner. In 2012-13 the overall budget will reduce by £170,000 because of the removal of one-off funding agreed for this year only. But costs will reduce by at least £60,000 as a result of providing mortuary services for Kirklees and Calderdale.

This will leave the budget short of £155,000 for 2012-13, mainly as a result of under-use.

It is expected the pressure on the budget will reduce in the shorter term when extra work comes from Wakefield and Leeds.

The report, which is due to be discussed next Wednesday, says managers involved in the project had not fully appreciated the full implications of the changes that the facility would bring in.

“Much of the project management focused on the construction of the facility and the clinical requirements. The subsequent practicalities and legal issues of transferring the post mortem work undertaken in the hospitals across the West Yorkshire district were not appreciated at the outset...”

Bradford Council is in discussions to bring a £2m digital autopsy equipment to the facility. If installed, it will be the only digital autopsy suite in Europe and will reduce the need for invasive procedures, providing a service for the whole of Yorkshire.