Coroner Campaign 2026

The charity’s Coroner Campaign is intended to improve the experience of people bereaved by suicide who attend Coroner Inquests across the UK (except Scotland). It specifically aims to help Coroners and their staff appreciate that people bereaved by suicide are generally more vulnerable than others who attend inquests. That vulnerability creates additional needs.

When someone is suspected to have died by suicide, an inquest is legally required. It is a fact-finding, not fault-finding, inquiry to establish who died, and when, where, and how they died. Even though it is only intended to be fact-finding, it can – often does – explore the suicide event in forensic detail. Where state bodies are involved, especially Hospital Trusts or Prisons, the organisation leaders often adopt a defensive strategy, and deploy a range of legal and other experts. This can result in a devastating adversarial experience for the family and loved ones of the individual who died.

Even without heavy-handed legal intervention, for too many the trauma of losing a loved one to suicide is amplified by attending an inquest for which they are ill-prepared. Although there are Coroners who have excellent processes to support the suicide bereaved, there are very many who do not. Our campaign is aimed at the whole coronial service: Coroners, and all of the staff that support the inquest process. It also aims to better support families bereaved from suicide by integrating the necessary legal functions of the coronial service with compassionate support from people with lived experience of suicide.

These are two distinct audiences. For Coroners and their staff, Speak Their Name has developed a virtual presentation, accessed through an online booking capability. The sessions last 90-minutes and set out best practice for supporting people bereaved by suicide, drawn from those with lived experience and practitioners across the coronial service – there is no cost for participation. The seminars are only available to Coroner Teams and Suicide Prevention Leads who work for local authorities. If you fall into one of these two groups and have not received an invitation to join one of our sessions, please contact us: hello@speaktheirname.org.

Our other important audience is suicide bereaved families before they attend an inquest. In many cases, families and friends who lose a loved one to suicide did not see (or recognise) the signs in advance – the loss is sudden, unexpected, and traumatising. And the largest part of this majority will also have never experienced court proceedings, much less an inquest. Still reeling from the anguish of their loss, too many discover disturbing details, absorb unthinkable information, or find themselves in an unsympathetic judicial environment. Speak Their Name is working with other charities and organisations involved in the inquest process across the UK to create more consistently compassionate engagements for coronial service users – an informed, supportive experience that starts before the inquest, and carries on once the finding details are known. If you have recently lost someone to suicide and are dreading an upcoming inquest, please contact us so that we can put you in touch with local people who have already experienced a similar loss.