Please follow these protocols and procedures to ensure a consistent approach is used throughout. This will ensure all requirements are met sympathetically, and religious rights and beliefs are protected.

Family representatives

If you are a family representative, one close family member must be chosen as a point of contact between the family and the funeral director. The funeral director will help you to arrange the burial.

You should contact the funeral director as soon as possible about the death and burial, so they can start preparations and timetable you into their schedule. Please inform them you are looking for a short notice burial according to religious tradition.

The Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD), which would previously have been given to you in a sealed envelope, will now be scanned and sent electronically from either the GP, Bereavement Centre or Coroner’s Office directly to the Register Office. This will include contact details for the next of kin.

The Register Office will then contact the next of kin to arrange a telephone-only appointment to register the death. You will be given the opportunity to order and pay for any death certificates required. Certificates cost £11 each. These will be posted to you following completion of the registration.

All death registrations will now take place over the phone. You will not be required to attend the Register Office in person as this is now closed to the public.

After the death registration appointment has been completed, the registrar will send the Green Form 9 electronically to the burials office and notify the hospital mortuary as appropriate. This will allow the body to be released for burial.