Care of the deceased — the records worth keeping now

The Fuller Inquiry was about hospital mortuaries. Its lessons, and the cases in the funeral sector that followed, have landed squarely on funeral directors. Its reports recommended statutory regulation of the funeral sector as a matter of urgency, and in September 2026 the government committed to bringing forward proposals.

Whatever form the rules take, they'll turn on one question: can you show how each person in your care was looked after? Good funeral directors already look after people well. Far fewer can show it on paper. Here is what's worth recording, starting now.

Identity, at every hand-over

Most serious failures in the care of the deceased start with identity. Record:

• At collection: who collected, from where, when, and what identification was checked (name band, hospital or coroner's paperwork).
• On arrival: a second check against the same identifiers, by a named member of staff, with your own identification attached.
• At every move: into and out of refrigeration, to the chapel of rest, to the hearse. Who moved them, and that identity was checked again.
• At release: handing over to the crematorium or cemetery, with the paperwork that went with them.

The rule of thumb: any time the person you're caring for changes place or hands, write down who, when, and that you checked.

Storage

• Temperature logs for every refrigerated unit, at least daily, with a named person and what was done if a reading was out of range.
• Time in care. Current guidance points to moving someone to frozen storage if they'll be in refrigerated storage for more than about 30 days. You can't act on that unless you know how long each person has been with you.
• Capacity. A record of what's in each space, so a busy week never becomes improvised storage.

Access

Who can enter the mortuary, and when? The Fuller case turned partly on unrestricted, unrecorded access. Keep a list of who is authorised, and a log of entry: a keypad or card system that records it, or a signed book if that's what you have. Review the list whenever someone joins or leaves.

Belongings and wishes

• Personal effects: what came in with the person, what stayed with them, and what was returned to whom, with a signature.
• Instructions: jewellery to stay or be removed, clothing, viewing wishes, faith requirements. Record them where the person doing the work will see them, not only in the arrangement notes.

Incidents

When something goes wrong, from a failed refrigeration unit to an identification query, record what happened, what you did, and what you changed. A firm with an honest incident log and visible fixes looks better to a regulator than one whose records say nothing ever went wrong.

Keep it simple enough to be kept

The best record is the one your team actually fills in at 2am on a removal. A clipboard everyone uses beats a system nobody opens. Whatever you use:

• one place per person in your care, with every check and move on it
• a name and a time on every entry
• nothing that can be quietly changed after the fact

Do that, and when the inspector arrives, whatever form they take, the answer to "show me" is already in the file.