England: Bereavement: Coronavirus:

After the initial shock has worn off, a dull realisation dawns that the bureaucracy and mechanics of death goes on.

If the deceased expired in a hospital then it's relatively straightforward as staff will complete ...

the necessary paperwork & forward it to the Registrars Office.

(Death at home is more problematic as the body must not be moved until police and a Coroner have been notified and visited).

The Registrar will arrange to call you (as next of kin/executor).

That's when you need to know various details about the deceased aside from usual DoB & place of birth.

Such as their NINO and NHS numbers (the hospital will have these if you don't know them).

The Registrars interview takes 15 mins or so.

If the Registrar is satisfied with your answers and successfully concludes the interview, you'll be asked to pay for death certificates (5 for £55) which will be sent to your address by regular mail.

The Registrar will also email you a "magic" code.

This code allows you to access the Govt TellUsOnce service, whereupon you can fill in more details about the deceased such as their driving license details etc.

Once successfully navigated, that service will inform all relevant Govt depts such as DWP ..

... which stops the State Pension being paid into the deceased bank account.

Other relevant authorities also seem to get told about the deceased e.g. we have already had a final Council Tax bill for the few days that the deceased lived in this tax year.

In the meantime, the deceased will have been moved from the hospital morgue into the care of a funeral director, prior to cremation or burial.

The funeral director informs us that Councils across England are inconsistent about funeral arrangements.

Some haven't allowed any mourners whilst others have been more benign as to the number allowed to attend.

And strictly speaking, it's not a funeral but just the (graveside) Committal.

In our case, the local Council say it must only last 15 minutes.

From those who have to travel far to a Committal the Funeral Directors will provide a "To Whom It May Concern" letter to show the Police if you are stopped going to/from attending the Committal.

If you are lucky (sic) the deceased will have made and signed a will.

The relevant solicitor will need to be contacted and informed.

They cannot really begin the probate procedure until they have sight of the death certificate.

This is a bit of a grey legal area but if you the next-of-kin/legal power of attorney/executor have (electronic) access to the deceased bank account(s), relevant direct debits etc could be halted.

But you musn't pay out any monies from those bank account(s).

To be continued - as the business of CV19 death must go on.

As our Mum was one of the 980 hospital deaths on Good Friday, was vaguely hoping there might be a miraculous resurrection on Easter Sunday but no such luck.

She was a good Christian too.

In the time of CV19 elderly folks should seriously consider putting DNR on their medical records b/c it can ease the decision path for medical pros & assist the patient in dying relatively peacefully.

And is also a crumb of comfort for grieving relatives.

Bereaved people might find the link below useful.

Personally in a bargaining phase - if only the UK CV19 patients had been properly isolated in dedicated hospitals (as per Wuhan) ... https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/

If your elderly relative/CV19 victim was living in a retirement flat prior to entering hospital then you'll prob find that physical access to retrieve his/her personal items may be very difficult/impossible b/c those places will be on a very strict lockdown.

For the bereaved, random thoughts will occur from time-to-time which tend to pull you up short e.g.

Think I'll give Mum a call ...

Then the Death Certificate turns up.

It says Covid-19, possibly amongst other comorbidities.

But you know that your relative didn't have CV19 on entering the general hospital b/c he/she was initially put in a single room, tested for CV19 & was -ve.

The relative moves to a general ward.

But altho clearly recovering from whatever they went into hospital for in the first instance, has now developed CV19 symptoms.

Then hospital staff suggest that maybe that initial CV19 test was a false -ve.

Hmm.

Well, that is plausible but at no point are the words "nosocomial" or "HAI" uttered by hospital staff.

Only upon reading a blog by @RichardAENorth did the possibility of Hospital Acquired Infection hove into view.

Y'day a senior mgr stood outside the general hospital where Mum died & said to TV cameras that they were effectively running two hospitals on the site, CV19 & non-CV19.

Wuhan medics soon found out that delineation was very difficult on a single site.

Earlier in this thread, mentioned testing for CV19.

Experts reckon the PCR test to see if you already have CV19 can give up to 30% false negative results.

So doctors sometimes do multiple patient tests if they suspect CV19. https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-how-reliable-are-the-uks-coronavirus-tests