FP has formed a partnership with Simplify to provide an advice helpline service for Funeral Partners’ customers and staff on any practical concerns that might arise after a death. The service is shown as the bereavement adviceline on the home page of our Customer website – 0808 164 2239 – and is already live taking calls. Many of you will know the Bereavement Advice Centre (BAC), founded in 2007 with the support of the NAFD. It is BAC staff who will answer these calls as ‘Funeral Partners Bereavement Advice’.
So if you or a customer doesn’t know or aren’t sure about answers to questions on many areas including: registration; coroners and inquests; rights of inheritance when there is no Will, or all the other essential steps that need to be taken when administrating an estate, you now have a free service to offer.
Under development are other initiatives, for example, a bespoke version of the BAC website for Funeral Partners and a new guide for ‘What to do when someone dies – A Practical Guide’ based on BAC’s popular guide and advice service to the NAFD membership. This guides bereaved families through the early days from the moment the person who has died with lots of space to make notes, jot down questions and record essential information.
We expect our own booklet to become part of the standard information provided to our bereaved families. The guide was created by Anne Wadey, Head of Bereavement Advice, who has also written the last two editions of the Which? book ‘What to do when someone dies’.
Anne says she is excited about working more closely with funeral directors. “We are here to enhance and supplement the service already offered by FP funeral directors, not duplicate them, so whenever possible we will signpost people to their local branch for the face to face personalised service they offer. FP shares our commitment to support people in making fully informed choices about the services they use at this difficult but very important time in their lives. It will also be good to renew relationships with funeral directors I worked with closely in the past when I worked in the NHS in London, such as John Nodes and MM Broad.”
