This audit follows-on from our audit Delivering forensic services (Report 21: 2018–19).

Forensic services play a critical role in criminal investigations. Police, prosecutors, and the courts rely on forensic services to help them identify, exonerate, prosecute, and convict people suspected of committing crimes.

In our previous audit we assessed whether agencies deliver forensic services efficiently and effectively to support criminal investigations and prosecutions. Part of our audit focused on the delivery of forensic medical examinations. In the report we recommended that the Department of Health continues to develop and deliver reforms to forensic medical
examinations to improve services to victims.

In the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce’s report Hear her voice – Report two, the taskforce recommended that the Queensland Audit Office follow up the recommendations from our original report. This recommendation was made in the context of the Taskforce’s findings about the delivery of forensic medical examinations to victims of sexual assault.