Death at Home

If the death occurs at home you first need to contact a healthcare professional. This can be done at any time of day. If the GP practice is closed, your call will be diverted to the surgery’s on-call service. If this isn’t possible, call the NHS helpline on 111.

Typically, a Doctor, either the deceased’s own GP (during surgery hours), or an out-of-hours Doctor, will come to the house to confirm the death. If a Registered Nurse or Paramedic is already in attendance, it may not be necessary for a doctor to attend.

If it is clear that the death was expected, the attending doctor or medical professional will give verbal permission for the deceased to be transferred into the care of the Funeral Director.

If there are any questions about the cause of the death, such as whether it was sudden or unexpected, they may refer the death to the coroner.

When you are ready and you have said your goodbyes to the deceased, you can contact us by telephone at any time of day so we can arrange to transfer the person who has died into our care.

Our team here at Gillotts Funeral Directors are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on 0800 470 1130.

We will give you an expected arrival time for our team of experienced funeral professionals. We send a team of two, so if you feel there is anything we need to know that will affect their ability to transfer the deceased safely and with dignity, please let us know.

Our team will arrive in a discreet vehicle which contains the equipment we need to transfer your loved one into our care in a respectful way. Our equipment is similar to that used by the Ambulance service.

We will list all items of property that are currently with the deceased and ask you to sign to confirm this.

We’ll also leave you with a booklet explaining what happens next, together with a folder of information about funeral arrangements, which may help you with decision-making in the coming days.

Our team will confirm with you whether you would like us to call you the next working day to offer any advice on the next steps, or if you would prefer us to wait to hear from you when you are ready.

We will then take their leave and transfer the deceased directly to one of our funeral homes.

We recommend that the following working day, you contact the deceased’s GP surgery. This is to ensure that they have been informed of the death, and to check that they have the correct contact details for the person that needs to receive calls about the deceased in the coming days.

They will send the required paperwork to the Medical Examiner’s office which will include the proposed cause of death.

Medical Examiners, are independent senior Doctors whose role is to scrutinise paperwork following a death. Part of their role is to discuss the proposed cause of death and the circumstances with you, to enable you to ask any questions or raise any concerns you may have.

Within a few days, the Medical Examiner’s office will contact you by phone to explain what the cause of death will be recorded as, or if the death needs to be referred to the Coroner. You can ask any questions about the cause of death or raise any concerns you have.

If they are not referring the death to the Coroner, they will usually advise you that they are sending the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death to the Registrars office, along with your contact details.

Once the Registrar’s office has received the paperwork, they will contact you by phone, text or email to make an appointment for you to register the death.

This then usually needs to be done within 5 days.

If you do not live locally you can attend your local registrars to Register by Declaration, but you will not be able to obtain the certificates straight away – these will still be issued by the registrar in the place where the death occurred.

Find out more about registering the death here.

As soon as you are ready, we can arrange to meet with you to talk about your thoughts and wishes for the funeral.

We can start these conversations even if the legal paperwork has not yet been completed. We can meet with you by appointment either at one of our funeral homes or at any local address.

We have detailed the steps that need to be taken to arrange the funeral here. Find Out More

Once the Medical Examiner has confirmed that they are sending the paperwork to the Registrar, we can confidently look at dates for the funeral.

If you have already met with us to begin discussing your wishes for the funeral please let us know that the Medical Examiner has completed their paperwork and we can look at date options for the funeral.

If you have not yet felt ready to meet with us to begin planning the funeral, but now wish to do so, please get in touch and we will make an appointment to meet with you.