Death registration delays 'prevent closure'

Delays to deaths being signed off are preventing families from getting the "closure they require", a funeral director has said.

Jeff Wilson at Ashbrooke Funeral Directors in Sunderland said deaths in the region were taking longer to be signed off and so it was taking longer for funerals to be organised.

South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust (STSNFT) acknowledged the issue and said it was "very sorry".

It blamed a recent law change and "unforeseen absence" in the medical examiner workforce.

Reforms to the death certification system came into effect on 9 September 2024.

All deaths are now reviewed independently, either by a medical examiner or a coroner, before a death certificate is issued.

The moves were made partly in response to the Harold Shipman murders.

It has led to a jump in the workload of medical examiners across the country, according to the Royal College of Pathologists.

Mr Wilson said a funeral could not be booked until a death was registered.

He said before the reforms came into force, it would take three or four days before a death was registered or "sometimes sooner".

Now registrations were taking longer than a week, he said, which meant funerals might not be held for at least another week afterwards.

"Families can't get the closure they require," he said.

A woman whose father died at Sunderland Royal Hospital on 23 March called the system "cruel".

The Sunderland resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, said her father's death was not registered until 2 April and therefore funeral arrangements had to be put on hold until then.

During the wait for her father's death to be registered, she said she felt "completely helpless and powerless".

"It was awful thinking of him being in the hospital morgue all that time," she said.

She said the current system was "insensitive" to the "very basic needs of grieving families".

STSNFT's executive medical director Dr Shaz Wahid said the delays were not acceptable.

He said the trust was looking to recruit more medical examiners which would help to "speed up matters".

The Department of Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.

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