麻豆社

20-year-old Joe Baker, from Hopton Heath on the Herefordshire-Shropshire border, was killed in a road traffic accident whilst returning to his Royal Navy base in Somerset.

His mother Rachel and father Adam were denied access to his body for ten days after his death.

Since then, Rachel has been lobbying hard to change the rules over so-called 'closed mortuaries' so that families have more immediate access to their loved ones. She's had a meeting with both the Musgrove Hospital officials and the Somerset Coroner's office but says, while limited progress was made, in her view there is still a lot more to be done.

Trevor Owens reports.

A spokesperson for Somerset NHS Foundation Trust said: 鈥淲e are very grateful to Joe Baker鈥檚 family for meeting us and describing their very painful experience of not being able to see his body for ten days after his death.

鈥淚t gave us the opportunity to describe the legal frameworks that we work within and to understand how we can work better with the coroner to speed up these processes and jointly improve our communication with families.

鈥淲e could not enable access to Joe鈥檚 body until directed by the coroner after the post mortem had taken place and the inquest opened.

"Communication with Joe鈥檚 family between our trust and the coroner鈥檚 office was not clear enough and we are very sorry for this, and the distress it caused his family.鈥�

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