What we do not do
We do not decide the cause of death, and we cannot hurry it
A doctor certifies it, or the Medical Examiner does. Neither of them works for us.
Everything else waits on that signature: the registration waits on it, the permit waits on the registration, and the funeral waits on the permit. When a death goes to the Medical Examiner it can take days, and occasionally longer, and no funeral home can shorten it.
What we can do is chase, every day, and tell you the truth about where it has got to instead of guessing at a date to keep you happy. A funeral home that promises you a day before the certificate is signed is promising something that is not theirs to give.
Who signs, and in which circumstances
Two different offices. Which one it is decides how long the whole week takes.
Where a death was expected and the person was under a doctor's care, the doctor who was treating them certifies it. In a hospital, or under hospice care at home, that is usually straightforward and reasonably quick, and everything else follows on behind it.
Where the death was sudden, unattended or unexplained, it goes to the Medical Examiner instead, and that office decides whether an examination is needed. It works to its own timetable. That timetable is not ours, it is not the hospital's, and it does not move because a family is waiting, which every family is.
Everything else is queued behind that one signature. The registration waits on it, the permit waits on the registration, and nothing at all can be buried or cremated without the permit. It is worth knowing that the wait is structural rather than somebody being slow.
What to do about it
What we do meanwhile, and the one part you can move
Chasing is most of it, and being told the truth on the days when the truth is that nothing has changed.
We chase, every working day
Somebody here rings the certifying doctor or the office, and rings again when the answer is yesterday's. It is dull and it is the job.
We tell you where it has actually got to
Including when there is nothing to report. That is a worse telephone call to make and it is the honest one, and you should expect it rather than have to ask for it.
We do not fill the silence with a date
Until the certificate is signed there is no permit, and until there is a permit there is no funeral. A day offered before then is a guess in a good suit.
Have the doctor's name ready, if there was one
If somebody was treating the person, that name and practice shortens the first day considerably. It is the one part a family can genuinely move.
Tell relatives the range, and call it a range
The costliest mistake of the week is telephoning everybody with a day that then moves. Give them the window and say plainly that it is a window.
How to recognise it
What a less honest version of this looks like
The failure here is almost never a lie. It is a date offered to be kind, to somebody who badly wants one.
A day given before the certificate is signed
It is offered because you are distressed and it makes the call feel better for a few hours. Ask what it is waiting on and what happens if that does not arrive. A vague answer means a vague date.
An assurance that this one will be quick
Nobody outside the certifying office is in a position to know that. Ask instead what stage it reached today, and ask the same question again tomorrow.
The suggestion that a funeral home can hurry the Medical Examiner
Ask how, specifically. There is no answer to that question that survives being asked out loud.
We would rather be the firm that made you a worse telephone call on the first day than the one that had you ringing the family twice at the end of the week.
There is a separate page about the three people who all have to agree before a date exists at all. The certifying signature is only the first of the three, and it is the one nobody else can influence.
- We cannot promise a date — The other two who have to agree, the honest range, and why we tell you the same day it changes.
- The paperwork, in order — Every step from the medical certification to the last claim, marked with whose job each one is.
- Death certificates — Certified copies: who asks for one, how many you will need, and why the second order costs more.
The rest of the argument
One argument in nine parts
Each of these is a place where a family is told less than it needs to know, by somebody, in an ordinary week. They are on separate pages because they come up separately. They are the same argument.
The other eight
If it has gone to the Medical Examiner
Ring and we will tell you what usually happens next and what it is reasonable to expect. We will not tell you a day, and that is the point of the call.