Information for funeral directors only - University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust

Worthing and St Richard’s Hospital

Requesting a deceased for cremation or burial

You must contact us to inform us you are handling the funeral arrangements for a family.

Please use the Deceased Notification Form and email it to us as a word attachment.
Upon clearance, we will return the completed form to you. You MUST bring this with you. This will also tell you where the deceased is residing.
You will also need to provide authority from the relatives or coroner’s office upon collection. Please see authorisation types for more information.

Contact

01903 285018

UHSussex.wor.mortuary@nhs.net

Requesting a coroner’s case

You must use the Deceased Notification Form.

You will not need to provide a signed authority from the family as the Coroner’s Office will email you an ‘Authorisation to Collect’ form.
Please print this email as you will need to submit this upon collection alongside the Deceased Notification Form.

Deceased notification system

Funeral directors must use the Deceased Notification Form for requesting deceased as this supplies detail we can cross reference in the case of duplicate names etc.

You must complete this form with as much detail as you can and bring a copy of the returned form with you.
Please note: The Deceased Notification Form MUST be used even if you have received a coroners clearance email.

Authorisation types

University Hospitals Sussex Mortuary Service has a responsibility to ensure deceased patients are only released to the next of kin/executor/organisation’s appointed funeral director (FD).

Authorisation is therefore required from the next of kin (NOK)/executor/organisation or the Coroner’s Office to allow collection of the deceased you require.

The types of authority we require for different types of cases are outlined below.

Routine hospital cases, hospital doctor cases (brought into mortuary for a hospital doctor to issue papers)

University Hospital Sussex Mortuaries will in the first instance only accept a “Signed Authority”.

Our bereavement team issues the families with a blue-coloured authorisation form for their completion. They should then hand this to their appointed funeral director.

Should you not receive this form you may obtain your own. This must clearly state the name of the funeral director collecting and be signed by the NOK/executor authorising the collection.

The signed authority must also include the name of the NOK/executor/organisation, their address, a contact telephone number, whether or not they are the nearest surviving relative, and if not in which capacity they sign the form (e.g. brother, solicitor etc).

Should it not be possible for the FD to obtain this, then an email sent to the FD from the NOK/executor/organisation and printed will suffice.

If this is not possible, please contact the mortuary office on 01903 285018 to discuss.

We require you to submit this authority to staff before collection of the deceased.

Coroner’s cases and GP sign-ups

These are cases referred to and accepted by the coroner.

The coroner will upon clearance of the deceased send a ‘Confirmation of Body Release’ email to both the mortuary head office at Worthing and the funeral director dealing with the case. This is authority for the stated funeral director to collect their named deceased.

University Hospital Sussex mortuary service requires the funeral director named on the form to print this email and submit it to mortuary staff on their arrival. The mortuary staff will then complete the lower section of the form and retain it.

This form, and the Mortuary Clearance form are both required upon collection of the deceased. Any issues regarding this must be directed to the lead coroners officer on 01273 404012.

Where we are

The opening times for collections at both mortuary sites are Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 1:00pm and 2:00pm to 4:00pm.

Worthing mortuary

Entrance from Park Road: Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 2DH
Enter the Park Road entrance between the stone walls and follow the road to the end. The mortuary is located on the right.

St Richard’s mortuary

Entrance 1 (signposted “A&E”): Spitalfield Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 6SE
Follow the road around the hospital to the Fernhurst Centre and then turn left. The mortuary is located at the end of the road.