funeral expenses

MoveOver

I asked my GP about the National Donor Service. I carry a Donor card but wanted to be on a National Register. My GP then sent my name to a local University Hospital. They phoned me and in the conversation revealed that the GP receives a sum of money for recommending a body. Further conversation revealed that the Uni expect the disposal of final remains to be paid for and arranged by the executors. This can be some years later.

When my friends and relatives died I paid for a tree to be planted at the National Forest near to Burton-on-Trent. It cost £25 in 2008 and mourners were able to attend the planting ceremony.

Be_Happy

MoveOver wrote: »

I asked my GP about the National Donor Service. I carry a Donor card but wanted to be on a National Register. My GP then sent my name to a local University Hospital. They phoned me and in the conversation revealed that the GP receives a sum of money for recommending a body. Further conversation revealed that the Uni expect the disposal of final remains to be paid for and arranged by the executors. This can be some years later.

I wouldn't normally post on a 5 year old thread, but feel I must reply to some of the information here in case some readers are interested in body donation and put off by this posting. Perhaps the body donation differs throughout the UK, or perhaps there has been some misunderstanding, but the facts differ greatly in my experience.

OH and I have both registered as body donors with our local university's medical school. This involved considerable form filling and a recommendation to discuss fully with our family before signing. No money changes hands possibly because there is no final decision that your body will be required when you die, unlike organ donation where it is fairly certain that your organ will be accepted.

In body donation the body may be refused if you have died of certain illnesses (infections), if you have had major surgery shortly before death, or if the university has an adequate supply at the time you die. They will only collect the body within a 35 mile radius, outwith that it becomes the family's responsibility to arrange transport which has to be done through an undertaker at family cost, so if you have moved since donating this could apply.

The donation must be done personally by the person concerned and cannot be done by the family at the time of death, so you can't just pass on the responsibility of someone's funeral.

I don't know if GP's get paid for recommendations, but this sounds more like Burke and Hare, the grave robbers (on TV last week) than the present day. We told our GP we had made the donation and he noted it on our records. There is a very short time frame for the university to be notified after the death.

As far as the executors having to pay for a funeral years later is concerned, this certainly doesn't apply here. After 3 years in the medical school, the remains are cremated, paid for by the university. A funeral service is held at the university and those who wish to attend can do so. (I don't know if these are individual services, or if they are held for batches of donated bodies).

One point to note is that if you have registered as a whole body donor, you can't also be an organ donor.

Primrose

economiser wrote: »

I don't want to have money wasted on a funeral for myself. What is the cheapest way I can have my remains disposed of?

I think you can donate your body for medical research but I think you have to make arrangements with a Medical School or research organisation beforehand as they won't just call by the house in the event of a death and pick up the corpse. Not sure who you would need to contact to get more information but I'm sure Googling the question might produce some details.

Errata

The Human Tissue Authority has responsibility if you wish to donate your body http://www.hta.gov.uk/donations/howtodonateyourbodytomedicalscience.cfm

Primrose

MoveOver wrote: »

I asked my GP about the National Donor Service. I carry a Donor card but wanted to be on a National Register. My GP then sent my name to a local University Hospital. They phoned me and in the conversation revealed that the GP receives a sum of money for recommending a body. Further conversation revealed that the Uni expect the disposal of final remains to be paid for and arranged by the executors. This can be some years later.

When my friends and relatives died I paid for a tree to be planted at the National Forest near to Burton-on-Trent. It cost £25 in 2008 and mourners were able to attend the planting ceremony.

This could be tough luck on the executors if, by then, they've distributed all the assets in the estate and find that they're lumbered with paying the funeral costs out of their own pocket. Something to beware of.

escortg3

Capyboppy wrote: »

What is state of affairs or options if I wanted to do the following? As funerals are such high cost and also because of my beliefs, I would not want to use a funeral parlour in the normal traditional way. Everything would be done to save money. i.e. body taken from hospital by family friends to house. Own nature friendly coffin. Body to cemetary in friend or family estate car etc. But as there would be some costs such as the plot, I would like it that no one left behind has to worry about using their own money and trying to claim it back. Are there any funeral plans that would just allow say costs of a plot or cremation, and the rest released to the next of kin for any other costs on the day? Or does the plan have to be adhered to in the sense of the money being used for a typical traditional funeral. My mum before she died wanted something similar and we tried to keep to it as much as possible, with her being buried in a woodland cemetery etc. We found out after, that in a way we were taken advantage of in our grief and had things like £300 service charge to cover the body being taken from the hospital to chapel of rest, pall bearers, and so on. We had previously stated that we were doing a "do it yourself" funeral as much as possible, and I remembered being steered away from collecting mum's body from the hospital etc Now I know why. If we had totally done it as as "do it yourself" they would have got virtually nothing compared with normal.
If I were to buy a plot now and keep some money in a separate account for funeral expenses, this would not be accepted by the DHSS either. So any ideas would be appreciated.

The co-operative plan allows you to pay for what you want. Do a tailor made plan and you can pay for plot/cremation and anything else. newspaper notice, order of service sheets. etc