Anubix: Transforming post-mortem imaging and death care
Find out how Anubix is making high-quality post-mortem imaging more accessible, helping families, coroners and healthcare teams access dignified alternatives to traditional autopsy.
Access to post-mortem CT (PMCT) imaging remains limited and inconsistent across much of the UK, meaning many families and coroners do not have access to less invasive alternatives to traditional autopsy. Drawing on her experience as a specialist radiologist and her personal experience of bereavement, Natasha Davendralingam founded Anubix to help make high-quality, publicly funded post-mortem imaging more accessible, while improving standards, governance and support across death investigation pathways.
Now an NHS Innovation Accelerator fellow, Natasha is working to expand access to post-mortem imaging and help ensure that death care is delivered with the same standards of compassion, quality and innovation expected throughout healthcare.
What is Anubix and what problem does it solve?
Anubix is a specialist post-mortem imaging and death-care innovation company. The core service uses PMCT to support death investigation by providing coroners, pathologists, NHS teams and families with a less invasive, clinically robust alternative or adjunct to traditional autopsy.
Access to post-mortem imaging in the UK is still extremely limited and inconsistent. At present, only a small proportion of the country has access to PMCT pathways, and in some areas this may only be available privately rather than through a publicly funded service.
“For me, that is not good enough. If PMCT is clinically appropriate, it should be available as part of a publicly funded death investigation pathway, just as traditional autopsy is.”
“For me, that is not good enough. If PMCT is clinically appropriate, it should be available as part of a publicly funded death investigation pathway, just as traditional autopsy is.”
Anubix was created to help make that possible. It provides specialist PMCT reporting, clinical governance, peer review, training, service design and pathway support. Depending on local need, it can support reporting-only models, scanning and reporting models, pathologist-led or hybrid models, and full pathway services with partners, including transport, storage, external examination and minimally invasive procedures where appropriate.
But Anubix is not only about scanning. It is trying to improve the wider death investigation and death-care ecosystem. This includes their After Life Imaging Clinic, which helps families understand imaging findings in a compassionate way; post-mortem imaging education programmes (virtual & hybrid); scholarships for learners from low- and middle-income countries; and developing AI-supported death investigation tool (CODA), which aims to improve documentation, clinical summaries and decision support in death certification and coronial pathways.
The underlying principle is simple: death care is healthcare. The standards of quality, dignity, governance and compassion that we expect in life should not disappear after death.
What was your inspiration and motivation?
As a radiologist specialising in post-mortem imaging, Natasha had already seen the clinical value of PMCT. But after her father died, she felt the emotional importance of the work even more deeply. Behind every scan is a person who has died, and behind every person is a family who may be frightened, grieving, confused or desperate for answers.
What motivates Natasha is the chance to improve that experience. Death investigation can feel opaque and frightening to families. Traditional autopsy may be necessary in many cases, but where a less invasive approach is clinically appropriate, families should be given that option. This is particularly important for those with religious, cultural or personal objections to invasive post-mortem examination.
She is also motivated by quality. PMCT is not simply “a scan of the dead”. It requires specialist interpretation, training, governance, peer review and close collaboration with coroners and pathologists. Anubix exists because Natasha wanted to build a service that treats post-mortem imaging with the same seriousness and standardisation as any other specialist area of medicine.
“My own father’s death had a profound impact on me. It threw me into the world of grief in a way that no professional experience ever could. It made me understand, very personally, how painful and disorientating the period after a death can be, and how much families need clarity, compassion and dignity when they are trying to understand what has happened.”
“My own father’s death had a profound impact on me. It threw me into the world of grief in a way that no professional experience ever could. It made me understand, very personally, how painful and disorientating the period after a death can be, and how much families need clarity, compassion and dignity when they are trying to understand what has happened.”
Why did you become a fellow?
Innovation can be lonely, particularly when you are working in a niche area like death investigation. The NIA has connected Natasha with people who understand adoption, procurement, evidence, policy, implementation and scale – the things that make the difference between having a good idea and actually changing a system.
It has also enabled Natasha to connect with a network of inspiring people who are all trying to improve healthcare in different ways. Being around other innovators makes you think bigger, but also more practically. It challenges you to ask: what evidence do we need, who needs to be involved, how do we make this sustainable, and how do we make sure the innovation reaches the people it is supposed to help?
For Anubix, the NIA has made the team think not only about PMCT as a specialist clinical service, but about how they can improve adoption across NHS and local authority pathways. That is crucial because post-mortem imaging sits across multiple systems: healthcare, coronial services, local authorities, bereavement care, pathology, radiology, mortuary services and public health.
“Being an NIA fellow has been incredibly meaningful. It has given me a sense of community and connection at a stage when Anubix is moving from specialist service delivery into wider system change..”
Looking ahead
My ambition is that every coroner area should have a clear route to high-quality PMCT where it is clinically appropriate. It should not depend on geography, private payment or whether a particular local area has happened to develop a service. Families should not face a postcode lottery at one of the most painful moments of their lives.
Natasha would like to see PMCT become embedded nationally through sustainable NHS and local authority partnerships, with proper standards, governance, trained professionals and fair public funding. The goal is national availability, not that every case has PMCT, but that every family and every coroner has access to a safe, expert pathway when PMCT is appropriate.
Over the next five years, the aim is for Anubix to grow beyond imaging alone. Natasha wants to improve death-care workflows, coronial documentation, education and family communication. Through Anubix Academy, radiologists, radiographers, pathologists, anatomical pathology technologists and coronial professionals are being trained in post-mortem imaging. Through their scholarships, Anubix wants to support learners in low- and middle-income countries. Through their After Life Imaging Clinic, the aim is to help families better understand imaging findings in a compassionate, human way.
Anubix is also developing CODA, an AI-supported death investigation tool designed to help with clinical summaries, documentation and decision support in death certification and coronial pathways. Used responsibly, digital tools could reduce administrative burden, improve consistency and help professionals make better decisions while keeping human judgment at the centre.
“My hope is that, within the next five years, post-mortem imaging becomes a far more accessible, consistent and publicly funded part of death investigation across the UK. Ultimately, I want Anubix to help change how society thinks about care after death. Death care is healthcare, and it deserves the same standards of compassion, safety, innovation and governance.”
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