Funeral director attacks 'secret deal' over bodies

Sep 18 2008 Buckinghamshire Advertiser

The owner of a funeral parlour has accused health chiefs of a clandestine arrangement with one of his competitors over the storage of patients' bodies after they have died in hospital.

Roger Collings, director of Chiltern Funerals in Chalfont St Peter, made a request under the Freedom of Information Act which forced Buck-inghamshire Primary Care Trust to reveal it has an informal agreement with GL Skinner and Son, also in Chalfont St Peter, over the storage of bodies after patients have died at Chalfont St Peter and Gerrards Cross Hospital.

Since 2002, GL Skinner and Son, whose business is 200 metres from the hospital in Hampden Road, has collected patients who have died and looked after them until death has been certified by a GP.

Mr Collings, whose business is in Layters Green Lane, claims this arrangement is improper because neither he nor, he believes, the third funeral parlour in the village, HC Grimstead, were invited to discuss or take part in it.

He said families are unlikely to choose his company to arrange a funeral when their loved one's body is already with another local funeral parlour.

He added: "I am very angry about it. "There isn't refrigeration at the hospital and that's why this situation has arisen.

"The hospital will say that it is up to the relatives to choose a firm to carry out the funeral, but nobody is likely to

change the funeral director once their loved one's body is there."

He said during the six years since the agreement was made, his firm has suffered about a seven-fold drop in business from families of patients who have died at the hospital.

Gary Skinner, of GL Skinner, in Market Place, said: "I was asked to look after people's loved ones after they've passed away, if no funeral director has been appointed, or if the funeral director is not local.

"This is so the GPs can certify deaths without travelling long distances.

"There's no contract and I don't get paid, and, in about 80 per cent of cases, another funeral director is appointed to organise the funeral."

Ed Macalister-Smith, chief executive of Bucks Primary Care Trust (PCT), said he will review the arrangement before mid October, according to a letter he wrote to Mr Collings, which has been seen by the Advertiser.

Mr Collings has written to Health Minister Alan Johnson accusing Bucks PCT of a "clandestine arrangement".

A spokesman for Bucks PCT said that the "arrangement" had been made by its predecessor organisation, Chiltern and South Bucks PCT.

She said: "No money has passed from Buckinghamshire PCT to GL Skinner and Son."

Tony Howes of HC Grimstead, in Churchfield Road, declined to comment.