Standards for mortuary services: guidance published by the Scottish Ministers, Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service

Appendix 1: Development of the standards

These standards for mortuary services have been informed by current evidence and best practice recommendations and were developed by group consensus.

Evidence base

A systematic review of the literature was carried out using an explicit search strategy devised by an information scientist based in the Healthcare Improvement Scotland Evidence Directorate. Databases searched include ERIC, Cinahl, Embase, Medline, ASSIA and Public Health and PsychArticles. Additional searching was done though citation chaining and identified websites, grey literature, and stakeholder knowledge. This evidence was also used to inform all relevant impact assessments.

Development activities

To ensure each standard is underpinned with the views and expectations of health and social care staff, mortuary services staff, third sector representatives, people/individuals and the public in relation to mortuary services, information has been gathered from a number of sources/activities, including:

• the mortuary review group's response to Scottish Government,
• a literature review,
• an equality assessment,
• an initial scoping meeting in December 2018,
• two development group meetings between February and April 2019,
• consultation June and July 2019, and
• finalisation meeting in August 2019.

A project group, chaired by Professor Stewart Fleming, Emeritus Professor at Dundee University, was convened in February 2019 to consider the evidence and to help identify key themes for standards development. The work was paused in response to COVID-19. The membership of the project group is set out in Appendix 2.

Quality assurance

All project group members were responsible for advising on the professional aspects of the standards. Clinical members of the project group were also responsible for advising on clinical aspects of the work. The Chair, Professor Stewart Fleming, was assigned lead responsibility for providing formal clinical assurance and sign-off on the technical and professional validity and acceptability of any reports or recommendations from the group.

All development group members made a declaration of interest at the beginning stages of the project. They also reviewed and agreed to the project group's Terms of Reference. More details are available on request from: Healthcare Improvement Scotland's email.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland also reviewed the draft standards document as a final quality assurance check. This ensures that:

• the standards are developed according to agreed Healthcare Improvement Scotland methodologies
• the standards document addresses the areas to be covered within the agreed scope, and
• any risk of bias in the standards development process as a whole is minimised.

For more information about the role, direction and priorities of Healthcare Improvement Scotland please visit: Healthcare Improvement Scotland's website.