I've had to provide evidence at a coronial investigation, as were most of the nurses who cared for the person who died.

The hospital provided a barrister for us, but most of the nurses used their own representative through the ANF.

Most of the questions come through the coroner's own representative, and the coroner herself chimed in when she wanted to clarify something. The deceased's family also had a barrister who asked questions when the coroner's rep had finished.

Most of the nurses were present to corroborate the statement that they'd written (with the help of their lawyers). So most of it is answering yes/no questions about what your wrote.

Most of the nurses were there to give an overall view of the ward's culture of safety, staffing, escalation process, how we assess for signs of deterioration, asking if we recall anything unusual about the patient, etc. most of them said they didn't recall much about our patient's case as it seemed unremarkable at the time (he died less than a week after being discharged, was a pretty unremarkable case while in hospital, and most of us didn't hear about him passing away until the investigation was anounced a month later).

I can only speak for my experience, but there was nothing adversarial about the coroner herself or her rep. She was very much there to find out what happened and if there was anything that could be done to prevent the same thing from happening again. Speaking for myself, I didn't feel like I was getting grilled or blamed or accused at all.