What to do when someone dies

In Hospital or a Care Home

The next of kin will be contacted and once the Medical Certificate of Death is made available, registration of the death and funeral arrangements can go ahead. A relative or person present should register the death at the local Register Office and this is when you contact us as your Funeral Directors (01234 843222).

At Home

Call 111 immediately if the death is unexpected. They will then guide you through what to do next.

If the death was expected call the General Practitioner (G.P.) of the deceased immediately.

The G.P. will then give permission for registration of the death and for A L & G Abbott as your Funeral Directors, to be contacted and for the deceased to be brought to our Chapel of Rest in Kempston.

If death is unexpected, the G.P. will inform the Coroner who will in turn contact the next of kin to authorise registration of the death and release of the body, at which point A L & G Abbott, as your Funeral Directors, should be contacted.

Registering a death

To register the death you need to have a simple interview with the registrar at the Register Office. You will need to provide the following:

• The full name of the person
• Their full address
• Their date of birth and occupation
• Details of where and when the person died
• The medical certificate of death given by the G.P, or hospital doctor
• If the person who has died is a married woman you will need her maiden name, husband’s name and occupation

The following people can register the death:

• Any relative of the person who has died
• Any person present at the death
• The person who lives in the house where the person died
• The person arranging the funeral, but not a funeral director

Every death should be registered in the area where it happened, but it can be arranged to register it in another area if necessary.

The registrar will give you:

• A green certificate which you should give to us as soon as possible
• A white certificate which you should fill in and send to the social security office for the area where the person died

Copies of the ‘entry of death’ (also known as the death certificate) can be bought from the registrar. This is required for official purposes such as pension schemes and closing bank accounts.

Placing the Notice

The placing of press notices is one of the tasks we can fulfil as your funeral director. However, if you would like to take care of this the notice should be written/typed out and taken to the newspaper office together with a copy of the death certificate. Alternatively, an email can be sent with the death certificate attached. Newspapers will not accept an obituary given over the telephone and will also contact the Funeral Director.

If you would like the information more accessible to a wider audience you might like to consider placing the obituary in one of the national broadsheet newspapers. Also, if they were a member of a professional society or club with a journal, then the editor may be interested in publishing the obituary.

Organisations to contact following bereavement

'Tell us Once' is a service that lets you report a death to most government organisations in one go. These include:

• HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)
• Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
• Passport Office
• Local Council
• Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)

The registrar will give you a unique reference number to access this service online or by phone.

Please note: not all register offices offer this service.

People you may also need to contact include:

• Employer
• General Practioner (G.P)
• Pension Provider
• Insurance Companies
• Solicitor
• Bank
• Building Society
• Post Office Accounts
• Stocks and Shares
• Clubs and Societies
• Dentist
• Optician
• Car Ownership Details
• Gas
• Electricity
• Water
• Telephone/Mobile
• Broadband Provider