The Dead Citizens Charter, launched in draft form by the National Funerals College, aims to improve the way funerals are handled. The charter is perhaps unfortunately named, since the dead person has few rights, beyond the right for the body to be treated with dignity and the right to be remembered for his or her qualities during life. The rights that the College enumerates are mainly those of the next-of-kin or of those looking after the funeral arrangements. The charter should be renamed the Funerals Charter.
It should also be given more teeth and more specificity. If a right is worded as waffle and generalities, it will be ignored. The fact that the funeral trade seems minded to accept the charter's draft list of rights, whilst objecting vehemently to the more radical code being drawn up by the Institute of Burial and Cremation Authorities, suggests that this Dead Citizens Charter may be something of a missed opportunity - unless it does indeed take on board comments received and succeed in tightening up the final version.
There are 24 rights listed in the charter. Some of these are excellent and do suggest improvements on present practice. For instance, there is:
- The right to arrange a funeral without the services of a funeral director.
- The right to a funeral service that recounts the life and the death of
the person, recognising their uniqueness and the relationships that death
has broken.
- The right to choose, subject to statutory health and safety restrictions,
whether or not the body should be embalmed.
- The right to choose what happens to the body before the funeral. This
includes the right to choose whether it should lie at home; what clothes
are to be worn for the laying out and funeral (subject to statutory restrictions);
whether the coffin is to be left open and its closure witnessed; and whether
the body should rest overnight in a church or in any other place where the
funeral service is to be held next day.
- The right to expect that the person, religious or secular, who is conducting
the funeral, will contact and speak with the family beforehand.
- The right to a wider range of memorials.
What is missing from the list of rights in the draft charter? Very specific minimum standards should, the Natural Death Centre believes, be explicitly detailed in the summary of rights, not hidden in the body of text, as the public will hardly ever see the full document. What else could be added to the list of rights to help to improve funerals in future?
In the Natural Death Centre's opinion, the following would help:
- The right of the next-of-kin to visit the body, whatever advice they may receive to the contrary.
[Visiting the body includes the right to see and touch. The traumatised mother, for instance, refused the right to see and touch the body of the son who died in a motorbike accident, because it was felt that it would unnecessarily distress her, is only further traumatised and left with longer term resentments.]
- The right, recognised by law, but sometimes obstructed by hospitals in practice, for the next-of-kin rather than a funeral director, to be given the body of the deceased by a hospital, if no funeral director is being used.
[The Natural Death Centre, on several occasions, has had to send faxes to hospitals reminding them that the next-of-kin are legally entitled to possession of the body.]
- The right for the body to remain undisturbed for a period after death, if so desired by the next-of-kin, for religious or other reasons.
[For Tibetan Buddhists and others, it is considered necessary to leave the body undisturbed for up to three days.]
- The right to obtain information leaflets - on free funerals, inexpensive
funerals and funerals without funeral directors - from hospitals, registrars,
citizens advice bureaux, social security offices, crematoria and cemeteries.
- The right of funeral suppliers, crematoria and cemeteries to sell cardboard
and other coffins to members of the public direct, without receiving threats
from funeral directors.
[The Natural Death Centre knows of a number of instances where coffins had to be withdrawn from sale following threats from funeral directors. The Office of Fair Trading is currently looking into this abuse.]
- The right of the public to obtain a funeral through their local authority (or a simple body disposal service, for those who feel that this is all they require).
[Every local authority should contribute to keeping funeral prices down, by making available a cheap basic funeral, as the best now do. However, many correspondents to the Natural Death Centre go beyond this, wanting their body to be disposed of simply, cheaply and without any ceremony at their death - and for such people, a 'body disposal service' should be on offer.]
- The right for the body to be given back to nature after death, if so
desired, and therefore, the right of the public to be offered Green funeral
options, thus requiring every local authority to make available a Green
or woodland burial ground, where a tree is planted instead of having a headstone;
and requiring every funeral director to make available cardboard coffins,
shrouds or similar biodegradable body containers.
- The right to be buried or cremated in whatever body container is desired,
subject to environmental and technical constraints, whether this be a shroud
or a cardboard coffin or a willow coffin or alternative container.
[Shrouds are normally stiffened with an inner plank, then lowered into the grave with attached ropes.]
- The right of the public to purchase assistance from funeral directors on an à la carte basis, rather than having to buy a complete package.
[If a family wants just a coffin, body transport, refrigeration, hearse or bearers, they should be able to obtain a particular aspect from the funeral director, without paying for a complete package.]
- The right to obtain a fully itemised breakdown of the funeral director's prices over the telephone and through leaflets on display in funeral directors' premises.
[In the States, a 1984 funeral regulation ensures this. To choose the most suitable funeral director is hard enough at a time of stress, without funeral directors concealing the necessary information.]
- The right to a clear indication, on all leaflets, shop fronts and notepaper, as to whether a funeral director is part of a larger chain.
[This needs to be in the rights section of the charter. Too many chains try to hide behind shop-fronts that look as if they belong to a small family firm.]
- The right for the public to be informed of a 'basic funeral' option in all a funeral director's price leaflets and presentations.
[Many funeral directors, although obliged by their code of practice to offer a basic funeral, do their best to conceal its existence.]
- The right to a wider range of memorials, including the right to any inoffensive nicknames, verses or designs on memorials.
[This is more specific than the charter's 'right to a wider range of memorials'.]
- The right of every citizen to an obituary and to be remembered for his or her worthwhile qualities.
[In this age of cheap electronic information storage, it should be the right of every citizen to have an obituary published, whether on the Internet or elsewhere, as part of the basic funeral package, even for social security funerals. It could become part of the minister's or officiant's role to assist, when necessary, with the writing of this obituary, for a small fee.]
The Dead Citizens Charter is available for £5 (inc. p&p, with cheques payable to 'The Mutual Aid Centre') from the National Funerals College, Braddan House, High Street, Duddington, Stamford, Lincs PE9 3QE (tel 01780 444269; fax 01780 444586).
- Readers are invited to send their suggested additional 'rights' to the Natural Death Centre (6 Blackstock Mews, Blackstock Road, London N4 2BT, tel 020 7359 8391; fax 020 7354 3831; e-mail: rhino@dial.pipex.com) and these will be copied for forwarding to the National Funerals College.
Michael Young, founder of the National Funeral College, replies:
Your points seem very fair to me and will be welcome.
Only I don't agree about the name Funerals Charter, it would sound like something from SCI [the American funeral giant, Service Corporation International - ed] or the industry generally. Dead Citizens Charter is of course a play on Citizens Charter but why not? Dead people have hundreds of rights in law, eg to control the inheritances and copyrights. The rights of the bereaved are generated by the death of a person.
Michael Young, Insitute of Community Studies, 18 Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green, London W2 9PF (tel 0871 288 2098; fax 020 8981 6719).
This webpage forms part of the Global Ideas Bank (www.globalideasbank.org).
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