Health Minister Brad Hazzard and Attorney General Mark Speakman put forward proposed changes to the Coroners Act on Wednesday.

One proposal, if passed, would remove a requirement to report a death to the coroner where the deceased had not seen a doctor in the six months prior to death.

A second amendment would allow a forensic pathologist to undertake preliminary examinations without the need for a direction from the coroner.

Shadow attorney-general Paul Lynch said his party would decide on a position after "we've read and analysed the bill", although he was also critical of the plan.

"The announced measures fall well short of what's required to solve the problems in the coronial courts and do precious little to deal with the lack of resources provided by the government. Fiddling with the law won't replace proper allocation of resources," he said.

"The number of inquests held in NSW has fallen from 215 in 2011 to 111 in 2019. The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission among others has complained about the delays in inquests.

"These proposed changes do nothing to deal with the shortage of specialist staff that the government has presided over.

"There is a need for a fundamental review of the coroner's court - but the government has been sitting since 2017 on the statutory review of the coroner's court and seems frightened of releasing it."

Any delays to the proposed changes are likely to devastate families who have been campaigning for years to see improvements in waiting times.

Cootamundra's Gloria Schultz waited more than than two weeks for her son Dean's body to be returned from the Department of Forensic Medicine at Newcastle after his death two years ago.

Mrs Schultz said grieving families would welcome any change that stopped other people having to go through a similar experience.

"All of these families have been terribly stressed by long periods of waiting. They have had enough," she said.

The Nationals' MLC Wes Fang has described Labor's decision not to as-yet back the proposed changes as "absolutely disgraceful".

"When you have a finite resource, what you dedicate the resource to is how you fix the problem," Mr Fang said.

"This is the city-centric Labor view of it. Because it doesn't affect their electorates, they're not willing to support it and that is disgraceful.

"It just shows the absolute lack of respect that NSW Labor has for rural and regional people."