What happens when someone dies in hospital

More than four in ten deaths in the UK happen in hospital, and a hospital has a settled sequence for what follows. It runs from the ward, to the bereavement office, to the medical examiner, to the mortuary, and finally to the funeral director the family chooses. The family’s part is smaller than it feels at two in the morning, and this guide is the sequence in order, with where you come in.

Step 1: on the ward, the first hours

A doctor or a senior nurse confirms the death, and the staff will tell you. You can stay with your loved one, and most wards will let the family sit for as long as they need, wash or dress them if the family’s tradition asks for it, and call the hospital chaplain or a leader of any faith. Say what you want; staff will not always offer, but they will nearly always agree.

When you are ready, the staff prepare your loved one and take them to the hospital mortuary, where they are cared for until a funeral director collects them. Nothing else happens that night.

Step 2: the bereavement office

Every hospital has one, and it works office hours. It will contact you, usually within a working day or two, or you can ring it in the morning. The bereavement office is the family’s single point of contact for everything the hospital does after a death: it coordinates the medical certificate, returns the belongings, tells you when your loved one can be collected, and answers the questions on this page for your particular hospital. If you are not contacted within two working days, ring.

Step 3: the medical certificate

A doctor who treated your loved one completes the medical certificate of cause of death, and in England and Wales a medical examiner reviews it and rings you to talk it through. Once cleared, it goes electronically to the register office and you can book the registration; the medical certificate of cause of death, explained covers this in detail. If the doctors cannot give a cause, or the death was unexpected or during treatment, the death is referred to the coroner, and what happens when the coroner is involved explains that.

Occasionally the hospital asks the family’s consent to a hospital post-mortem, to learn more about the illness. This is different from a coroner’s post-mortem: it is a request, the family can say no, and saying no changes nothing else.

Step 4: the belongings

The ward or the bereavement office holds your loved one’s property, clothes, glasses, a phone, a watch, and returns it to the next of kin, usually against a signature. Valuables may be held by the hospital’s cashier. Ask the bereavement office where each is; families are sometimes sent between three places for one bag.

Step 5: choosing a funeral director

The hospital will not recommend one and does not need you to have chosen on the first day. When you have, tell the bereavement office the name, and the funeral director deals with the hospital directly from then on: the release paperwork, the collection time, the mortuary. What to do when someone dies puts the choice of funeral among the other decisions, and direct cremation step by step is what follows if that is the choice.

Step 6: the collection

Once the medical certificate has gone through, the bereavement office releases your loved one to the funeral director, who collects from the hospital mortuary with the paperwork the hospital gives them. Typically that is within a few days of the death. Your loved one then goes to the funeral director’s chapel of rest, and the funeral director tells you they have arrived. If you want to see your loved one before then, most hospitals have a viewing room at the mortuary and the bereavement office arranges it.

If your loved one was from abroad, or is going home abroad

The hospital’s sequence is the same. What changes is what comes after the collection: the coroner has to be notified before anyone leaves the country, and the destination’s consulate has its own requirements. Sending someone home from the UK takes over from step 6, and we deal with the bereavement office in exactly the same way.

Registering the death

The registration is yours to do, by appointment, within five days in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, counted in England and Wales from the day the registrar receives the certificate; how to register a death is the guide for the appointment. It is the only step in this sequence that the hospital does not do for you.