Death at care home or hospice

Useful information for when a death occurs in a care home or hospice

Here is a brief guide to what will need to happen should your family member pass away at a care home or hospice.

You should receive ongoing support from the palliative care team through the end of life stages. The office team will then arrange the documentation required (Medical Certificate of Cause of Death) so that the death can be registered.

As most care homes and hospices do not have in-house mortuary facilities, your chosen funeral director will need to collect the person who has died the same day. However, they will allow relatives private time as required beforehand, so do ensure that you liaise with them regarding this.

For collecting a family member who has died from a care home, a £250 collection fee applies as personnel requirements differ from scheduled hospital collections.

If you have appointed White Rose Modern Funerals as your funeral director, please inform the care home or hospice of this in advance so that we can arrange to bring the person who has died into our care.

Registering the death

• The Medical Cause of Death Certificate (MCCD) will be issued by the usual doctor and sent from the GP practice to the Medical Examiner for checking. They will then send it to the Register office – usually they will inform you once they have done this.
• The specific register office you will need to contact is can be identified here based on the location of the hospital where the death occurred – if you visit the Register Office website to see how to book a telephone appointment – some require you to complete an online form first.
• During Covid restrictions the registration process was handled by telephone, however since 24th March 2022 all registrations are once again in-person.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with the White Rose team on 020 3281 1045. If you wish for us to be on standby when faced with an end of life situation, it would be helpful if you could please complete our planning ahead form – please note there is no obligation to use us but this gives us some useful details so that we can be better prepared.