Just wondering. How long was it between the death and the funeral or cremation.

p00hsticks

Torry_Quine said:

p00hsticks said:

Torry_Quine said:

p00hsticks said:

Torry_Quine said:

These do seem long. I've been involved in organising 3 funerals. Two were less than a week and one of those died at Easter. The most was my husband at 11 days but that was just because of the date I chose.

Were those deaths expected though ?
It took 8 days for me to even be in a position where we had the necessary paperwork to register the death... 

None of them were expected. 

In that case I think less that a week from death to funeral is incredibly quick, given the amount of bureaucracy involved if a doctor is not in a position to immediately sign a death certificate. 

Just because it's unexpected doesn't have to mean it takes a long time and there's lots of bureaucracy. 

Well going from my recent experience...

Death occurred on a Wednesday during the day - suddenly in a public place
Police were called, coroner notified and deceased was taken to the county hospital mortuary. 
Coroner got in touch with the deceaseds GP to ask when they had last seen them and if they could confidently give a cause of death - we think this was on the Thursday
GP replied (we think late on Friday) to say that they had not seen the deceased recently and were not prepared to suggest a cause of death.
Coroners office contacted us on the following Monday to tell us there would therefore have to be a post mortem and this was scheduled to take place on Wednesday morning - seven days after the death
On Wednesday afternoon we were told that cause of death had been established and the relevant paperwork would be sent electronically to both the local registrar to allow the death to be registered and to the funeral director to allow release of the body. The funeral director then had to get my signature giving permission for them to collect the body from the mortuary and I had to contact the register office to arrange an appointment to register the death - luckily I could get one for the following afternoon, otherwise it would have been a further five day wait due to the Easter break
.
So it was only by the end of Thursday that we had all the paperwork in place to enable the crematorium to be booked and for the body to be released to the funeral director .   

I know it was all necessary but it all took time and involved quite a few people going backwards and forwards.... absolutely no way we could have had the funeral within a week of the death, even if we'd just gone for a direct cremation. 

Silvertabby

2 weeks for my sister.  Would have been a week, but her wish was to be buried with our parents, which meant that the plot would have to be probed to confirm that it was deep enough for a third coffin.  But the chief gravedigger was on holiday and only he could say yay or nay......

tealady

Three weeks. That included the Christmas holiday and problems with train strikes meaning some mourners would have not been able to attend on the 1st date offered.

Spendless

A month exactly last year for my Nan. That was partly because my DD was travelling from her educational place in the South and we live in the North so we requested either a Friday or Monday for her to travel to minimise disruption to her studies. We were given a Monday, if we'd held out for a Friday (preferred choice) it would have been a longer wait.

northwalesd

We've just had my father in law's funeral this week. Died 2 Apr, after spending two weeks in hospital on critical care (renal unit). Initially told it would take about 48hrs to produce death certificate, that actually took 10 days as the hospital suddenly told us it was an unexpected death, and therefore needed to be referred to coroner.

Fortunately managed to register death on 16 Apr, and had a visit from undertaker later that day. They'd provisionally booked a slot at the crematorium for a week later, 23rd, as there had been a cancellation. We were told if we didn't want that then it would be a further two weeks after that date before there was an appropriate appointment (I guess as we'd specified an afternoon service for people travelling).

So exactly three weeks for us, but we're all finally glad the wait has passed. Still lots of 'red tape' to contend with though.

Torry_Quine

p00hsticks said:

Torry_Quine said:

p00hsticks said:

Torry_Quine said:

p00hsticks said:

Torry_Quine said:

These do seem long. I've been involved in organising 3 funerals. Two were less than a week and one of those died at Easter. The most was my husband at 11 days but that was just because of the date I chose.

Were those deaths expected though ?
It took 8 days for me to even be in a position where we had the necessary paperwork to register the death... 

None of them were expected. 

In that case I think less that a week from death to funeral is incredibly quick, given the amount of bureaucracy involved if a doctor is not in a position to immediately sign a death certificate. 

Just because it's unexpected doesn't have to mean it takes a long time and there's lots of bureaucracy. 

Well going from my recent experience...

Death occurred on a Wednesday during the day - suddenly in a public place
Police were called, coroner notified and deceased was taken to the county hospital mortuary. 
Coroner got in touch with the deceaseds GP to ask when they had last seen them and if they could confidently give a cause of death - we think this was on the Thursday
GP replied (we think late on Friday) to say that they had not seen the deceased recently and were not prepared to suggest a cause of death.
Coroners office contacted us on the following Monday to tell us there would therefore have to be a post mortem and this was scheduled to take place on Wednesday morning - seven days after the death
On Wednesday afternoon we were told that cause of death had been established and the relevant paperwork would be sent electronically to both the local registrar to allow the death to be registered and to the funeral director to allow release of the body. The funeral director then had to get my signature giving permission for them to collect the body from the mortuary and I had to contact the register office to arrange an appointment to register the death - luckily I could get one for the following afternoon, otherwise it would have been a further five day wait due to the Easter break
.
So it was only by the end of Thursday that we had all the paperwork in place to enable the crematorium to be booked and for the body to be released to the funeral director .   

I know it was all necessary but it all took time and involved quite a few people going backwards and forwards.... absolutely no way we could have had the funeral within a week of the death, even if we'd just gone for a direct cremation. 

That sounds quite an undertaking. No coroner etc involved in any of the deaths I mentioned.

jwright

My mother in law died on 22nd March and we had her funeral on the 22nd April.  The funeral could have been the16th April but some key people couldn't do that date.

Sarahspangles

I think some of the bureaucracy is there for our protection, whether in a hospital setting or the community. The checks before certificates are issued have been strengthened in response to awful cases like Shipman.

bamboo_socks

Something like 6-8 weeks for my grandmother - but the crematorium was being refurbished, then had to catch up, and for whatever reason it had to be there.

I remember colleagues being quite surprised when I gave them a date way off in the future for a funeral.

Sarahspangles

A distant relative, now a ex-pat, recently passed away in Spain. I’m told his funeral was the next day! The only close relative who wasn’t too frail to travel was the sole mourner. I think though that it was expected, and he’d probably outlived his local friends, or they had moved back to the UK.