The changes that we’ve seen within the funeral industry, regulation is one of them. We now have regulated funerals and regulated funeral plans. We have changes in the way death is treated in terms of registration. The way in which the hospitals treat the dead. You can’t say, Â someone dies of old age anymore. There has to be some medical reason for death, no matter how old the person.
So, I call this medicalisation of death. It’s done in layers of bureaucracy, where we are moving towards the medical referee system. So GPs will not be able, without direction from the medical referee, to issue cremation paperwork or issue any form of medical certificate for the cause of death. This is centralising things. And I have to say, despite the messages coming down from the Ministry of Justice, that it will speed things up, I disagree, and I think it is only going to slow things down.
30 years ago, you could have a cremation within ten days. You could have a burial within a week. We are now running at  2 to 3 weeks for a cremation; though you can still have a burial in ten days. But I think cremations will be getting out to four or five weeks before too much longer. Now, is that good?
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