Funeral parlours licensed like tattoo parlours

Scottish Government is introducing a statutory Code of Practice, an inspection programme and a licensing scheme for funeral businesses as part of a regulatory framework to ensure high standards of service. They’ll be working on implementation over 2019/20. In their consultation and investigation they drew an interesting parallel comparing the funeral parlour business model and […]

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WATER CREMATION – ONE ANSWER TO CLIMATE CRISIS

If you’ve been watching BBC’s Years and Years– a near-future view of our world – you may have seen the funeral in episode 3 where the chat goes (to paraphrase) ‘this isn’t a normal crematorium you know, it’s an aquatorium’. Fire or water? Turns out, given the option, 80% of people asked would choose water cremation […]

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How to pay for a funeral for a friend

I had a chat today with a Final Flinger about how to pay for funeral for a friend. He’s dying. She’s supporting. Both are worrying about how to pay for the funeral. And that’s the last thing they should be worrying about right now when they have just a little time left together.

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Funeral Poverty Conference

Powers to make funeral payments are transferring to Scottish Ministers, so there’s an opportunity for doing things differently/better.Scottish Government is hosting a conference to share information and gather views with wide-ranging individuals and groups who have an interest in reducing funeral poverty and want to have a say in shaping Scottish benefits to replace the Department of Work and Pension’s Funeral Payment.

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Grasping the nettle… the future of palliative care in Scotland

How does the future of palliative care in Scotland look? Well, talking to friends involved in death and dying down South, pretty good actually.

That’s in no small part to the work of an active and engaged group of people who meet as the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care and who run the website Good Life Good Death Good Grief and its events, like To Absent Friends festival.

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