SAIF Golden Charter

Here for you in a time of change

Long-awaited reforms by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on death certification will now come into effect in September.

On 15 April, Maria Caulfield MP read a statement in Parliament on behalf of the DHSC finally announcing the implementation date for the new regulations to reform death certification in England and Wales. Under these reforms, all deaths will legally become subject to either a medical examiner’s scrutiny or a coroner’s investigation. The changes coming into force on 9 September will put all the medical examiner systems obligations, duties and responsibilities on a statutory footing, and ensure they are recognised by law.

As many of you will be aware, this has already been set back from April 2023 and then from April this year. I believe this is mainly due to a lack of desire by many community GP surgeries to embrace the new procedures as they are laid out prior to legislation. There have been varying levels of delay in the death certification process in different parts of England and Wales, causing many SAIF members and their clients frustration.

The intention is that the changes will provide greater transparency on the circumstances surrounding a death. Medical examiners will always offer a conversation to the bereaved, providing an opportunity for them to raise questions or concerns with a senior doctor not involved in the care of the deceased. The hope and claim in the DHSC statement is that the new procedure will help deter criminal activity, improve practice and ensure the right deaths are referred to coroners for further investigation. We will have to wait and see if this will be the case in practice.

The introduction of medical examiners is only part of a broader set of reforms to death certification, coronial and registration processes, which will also include revised cremation forms. These forms are currently being reviewed and members will be advised of all changes once confirmed to us. I can advise that from 9 September, there will no longer be a fee payable to any doctors.

As part of the reforms, it is also proposed that medical referees at crematoria will only stay in place for a transitional period, the length of time is not yet known. This is likely to mean that there will be more responsibility on funeral directors to ensure all relevant documents for cremation are correctly completed.

There are many things happening currently which will have a long-term impact on the expected standards and the services offered by funeral directors. With immediate effect, all funeral directors will be receiving a visit from their local authority environmental health officers. In an effort to ensure that the local authority officers are informed appropriately, SAIF is working alongside the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) offering training and informative support across England and Wales to hopefully minimise any misunderstanding of common practices.

SAIF Chief Executive Terry Tennens and I recently met with the Fuller Inquiry team. Some of our members have given valuable input to the Inquiry and, following our meeting, we received additional questions regarding the reasoning why SAIF didn’t sign up to the Independent Funeral Standards Organisation (IFSO) code of practice. It has been evident for some time that the Government would like the funeral industry to work from one set of standards and, with regulation of funeral directors in some form on the horizon, we have worked hard to try and reach an agreement with the NAFD on a joint code of practice. I am pleased we are now making progress to achieve a balance with both trade bodies agreeing to use the Scottish Code of Practice as the core elements for both SAIF and the NAFD. Each will be able to add to that core where it is deemed appropriate to do so. I am confident this will lead to an understandable set of standards which Government and our two organisations can work with together to achieve appropriate and proportionate regulation for all.