We’re a bit late to the party, as this came out last week, but we were prompted by a comment from a regular reader on another blog post (thanks Andrew!!)
We were delighted to see one of our Recommended Funeral Directors featured in a documentary on ITV. Poppy’s Funerals were described as ‘female-led funeral directors out to buck several trends in male-dominated industry’.
We like that!
Watch the full clip here.
Here’s a curious thing.
The deadline to submit responses to the Competition and Markets Authority’s consultation on their proposal to make a market investigation reference was 5pm on Friday 4th January.
This is specified on page 132 of their Interim Report, in bold font: ‘Such comments should be provided no later than 5pm on 4th January 2019‘.
Like many others, the GFG absolutely busted our guts to get our response submitted in time. In fact, much of last week was spent ensuring that we provided a thorough and honest response to all of the questions asked. We thought that the deadline was just that – the latest time or date by which something should be completed.
But for some reason, it seems that at least one of the funeral trade associations have been given an extension, and are currently ‘developing their response’, according to their Facebook post today. Three days after the deadline.
We’re underwhelmed at this, to say the least.
Dear Reader
Are you connected to funerals in any way?
Are you somebody who has an interest in what goes on in funeralworld?
Have you had to arrange a funeral, or had to think about funeral arrangements for someone close to you?
Or do you work in the funeral sector?
Have you seen or heard things that you know are just wrong?
Are you concerned about aspects of your work, prices that you can’t justify to clients, procedures that you have to follow that you find uncomfortable, things that have gone on behind the scenes that worry you?
Have you been a bit busy recently and not got round to responding to the consultation launched by the Competition and Markets Authority at the end of November?
YOU’VE ONLY GOT FIVE DAYS LEFT.
(We wrote about the CMA’s Interim Report on the blog here and here if you want to refresh your memory)
Comments are invited on the CMA’s provisional decision to make a market investigation reference (MIR) in relation to the supply of services by funeral directors at the point of need and the supply of crematoria services in the UK.
Such comments should be provided no later than 5pm on 4 January 2019 to:
Funeral market study team
Competition and Markets Authority
Victoria House
Southampton Row
London
WC1B 4AD
E-mail: funerals@cma.gov.uk
This is hugely important.
It could completely change the landscape of the funeral sector for the benefit of people who need to arrange funerals. And that, effectively, will be all of us.
Please, make sure that the CMA hears from people from all walks of life who have an interest in how the funeral sector is currently operating.
If you have relevant experience or thoughts on the proposed investigation into the funeral sector, then make your voice heard.
If you don’t take the time to write and tell the CMA what you think, the responses received will be dominated by replies from corporate funeral operators and trade associations.
Your experience matters.
Your opinion matters.
You are the people the CMA need to hear from.
It’s time to speak up.
The full interim report and details of the consultation can be downloaded here, along with the findings of the research commissioned by the CMA to understand the behaviour, experiences and decision making of people who had recently engaged the services of a funeral director.
The report is a lengthy document but well worth reading – if you haven’t got time to do so, then here is a precis of what the CMA is inviting comments on:
‘The CMA considers that this interim report identifies significant concerns about the effectiveness of competition in relation to the supply of funeral services at the point of need and the supply of crematoria services in the UK.’
‘The CMA welcomes representations from interested parties on the provisional decision set out in this document. The CMA wishes to stress the importance of the consultation process in assisting the CMA’s decision making and urges interested parties to engage with the consultation. Respondents may wish to reply in relation to the supply of services by funeral directors at the point of need, in relation to the supply of crematoria services, or both. In doing so, respondents may wish to consider the following questions:
Do you consider that the CMA’s analysis is correct with respect to the suspected features of concern in the supply of:
‘8.31 Based on the evidence and our analysis set out in section 4, our provisional view is that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that one or more of the following features or combination of features prevents, restricts or distorts competition in the supply of services by funeral directors at the point of need in local areas:
‘8.33 Based on the evidence and our analysis set out in section 5, our provisional view is that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that one or more of the following features or combination of features prevents, restricts or distorts competition in the supply of crematoria services in local areas:
Do you consider that the CMA’s analysis is correct with respect to the reference test being met in relation to the supply of:
Do you agree with the CMA’s proposal to exercise its discretion to make a reference in relation to the supply of services by funeral directors at the point of need and the supply of crematoria services (see paragraphs 8.38 to 8.96)?
Do you consider that the proposed scope of the reference as set out in the draft terms of the reference in Appendix F, would be sufficient to enable any adverse effect on competition (or any resulting or likely detrimental effects on consumers) caused by the features referred to in paragraphs 8.31 and 8.33 to be effectively and comprehensively remedied?
Do you consider that the features which the CMA has identified that may prevent, restrict or distort competition are capable effectively and comprehensively remedied by UILs (undertakings in lieu of a MIR)?
Do you have any view on our current thinking on the types of remedies that an MIR should consider (see paragraphs 8.66 to 8.86)? Are there other measures we should consider?
Funeral director services:
Crematoria
Other possible remedies
The CMA would particularly welcome any specific evidence from respondents in support of their views.
In addition to the above, the CMA would also welcome evidence and views on the following matters:
Our intention is to publish on the CMA’s website an aggregated and anonymised summary of submissions from individuals, although if you prefer, you can indicate that you would prefer for your response to be published in full.
We intend to publish all responses from business and other organisations on the CMA’s website, except those responses marked as confidential. Respondents may request that their response be kept confidential. If you would like your response to remain confidential, clearly mark it to that effect and include the reasons for confidentiality. Please restrict any confidential material to the appendices to your response.
We will redact, summarise or aggregate information in published reports where this is appropriate to ensure transparency whilst protecting legitimate consumer or business interests.’
We have a chance to make a change. Right now.
Do you want to improve things for bereaved people? Do you want to be a responsible citizen who stands up for what they know is right?
Then find ten minutes to tell the CMA what you think.
Thank you.
The CMA interim report on the funeral industry is taking time to digest across funeralworld.
It’s not surprising, it’s a chunky document. And it’s possibly proving quite indigestible for some, particularly the PR teams at Dignity, Co-op and Funeral partners.
The essential conclusion is – the funeral sector is not functioning well. Competition is not working effectively, price rises can’t be justified, and bereaved people are at risk of being exploited.
AT LAST!!!!
Finally, an official body is seeing what we have been pointing to and writing about for years.
And an official body with clout. The CMA proposes to make a Market Investigation Reference (MIR) into both the funeral market and the cremation sector.
This in turn could lead to recommendations to government to impose transparency requirements, changes to the regulatory framework regarding funeral directors or the establishment of a regulatory body, with the possibility of CMA-led price regulation.
The interim conclusion found that:
Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, said: “People mourning the loss of a loved one are extremely vulnerable and at risk of being exploited. We need to make sure that they are protected at such an emotional time, and we’re very concerned about the substantial increases in funeral prices over the past decade.
“We now feel that the full powers of a market investigation are required to address the issues we have found. We also want to hear from people who have experienced poor practices in the sector so that we can take any action needed to fix these problems.
The two funeral directing trade associations don’t fare too well either, in particular the NAFD who nominates itself as ‘the Voice of the Profession’. Among their members they number Dignity, Co-operative Funeralcare and Funeral Partners Ltd. The three companies mentioned directly by name as profiting substantially from yearly high price rises are members of the NAFD.
“We recognise that trade associations bring a number of benefits to their members and may also be of benefit to consumers. However the evidence we have seen indicates that the two trade associations have fallen short of bringing about the level of transparency that is necessary to facilitate consumer choice. The evidence also indicates that the trade associations’ focus on supporting the commercial interest of its members may have been detrimental to competition, as illustrated by the approach taken to matters relating to online price transparency and the development of online comparison tools.”
So, all not so rosy for the Voice of the Profession, despite the NAFD PR statement in response which oddly seemed to have missed the point made by the CMA about their failings (it’s at point 4.101 on page 64).
This morning, BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme invited the current president of the NAFD to debate funeral costs with Louise Winter, founder of Poetic Endings (GFG Recommended funeral director and member of the Good Funeral Guild).
Listen here from 35 minutes 44 seconds.
It was an interesting few minutes.
We’d like to suggest that the NAFD explores the meaning of ‘debate’ as opposed to bulldozing through a discussion without drawing breath and requiring the other person to have to interrupt to make their point. Talking for over half of the allocated eight minutes is not good manners.
Here are a few excerpts:
From the NAFD representative in response to the suggestion of price capping:
“In some cultures, there is a necessity to spend money on a funeral as a mark of respect for the person who has died so you have to be very careful about making sweeping statements..”
Louise’s response: “That does not give the big corporates whatever price they want, well above the inflation rate every year, with their sole intention being to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. The people who are doing this are members of your organisation, your trade association, which supposedly exists to protect bereaved people and to help them have the funeral they want. It’s not. It’s just protecting the funeral directors and the costs that they are charging.”
NAFD response: “We protect bereaved people by giving them access to standards that can be guaranteed and a scheme of independent redress should something go wrong..”
And Louise cut in with “And outrageous prices, with no transparency, with only a third of your members putting their prices online”.
Worth a listen!
The National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors has today issued a press release stating its position on the subject of regulation.
SAIF members received an e-mail yesterday advising them that ‘after careful consideration we have decided that regulation across England and Wales is a good thing and welcome it’.
The ‘careful consideration’ appears to have been carried out by the SAIF executive committee. SAIF members were not consulted before the statement was announced and the consultation is apparently to follow.
Now, while it’s quite possible that all of the more than 870 members of SAIF and additional 100 associate members will all unanimously agree that regulation of some kind is required in the funeral industry, if we were a member of an association that was representing our business (we’re not by the way) we’d rather like to have been asked first about our opinion on such an important subject.
At the GFG we have long taken a stance that regulation of the funeral industry needs to be carefully considered and crafted, and definitely not determined by the trade associations involved. Trade associations are exactly what the name implies.
Any decision on regulation should be led by the interests of the bereaved person, a consumer focus that trade associations are, by definition the exact opposite to. Trade associations represent the interests of their members. Full stop.
Regulation of the funeral industry needs to be informed by wide input, including the funeral world, ideally by seeking the views of every person or company involved with providing assistance of some kind with funerals. However, currently, nobody knows exactly how many funeral director companies are currently operating, whereabouts they are or who is running them. There is no central register of any kind.
At the same time, the UK government is currently paralysed in every area other than those directly involved with the imminent withdrawal from the EU. Attempting to introduce regulation of the funeral industry in the current climate would, we gently suggest, likely mean that government would hand over the critical work of framing the regulation to the funeral industry trade associations hovering helpfully in the wings with their suggestions.
Incidentally, for ‘regulation’, replace with ‘whole tranches of licensing, required training, standards of premises, membership of associations’ and so forth, all providing new layers of bureaucracy, all coming at a cost (to be passed on to whom?), all adding to the end result of – what?
More passionate, creative, intelligent people starting up small companies to serve bereaved families in the best possible way? We doubt it.
Read the press release from SAIF below.
Independent funeral directors call for regulation of profession in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
England, Wales and Northern Ireland should follow in Scotland’s footsteps and introduce regulation of the funeral profession.
This is the position of the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors (SAIF) – the voice of independent, family-owned funeral directors across the UK.
It makes SAIF the first significant funeral trade association in the UK to back statutory regulation of funeral directors.
The association has also urged its members with websites to display their prices online as soon as possible to help bereaved consumers better understand possible costs involved with a funeral.
It could also mean families get a better deal, with research consistently showing that independent funeral directors’ prices are consistently lower than large groups, like Co-op Funeralcare, Dignity and Funeral Partners.
SAIF’s position on regulation is in response to the positive and proportionate way in which regulation is being introduced in Scotland, and comes in the wake of a small number of worrying cases in which funeral directors have fallen short of standards to which trade association members subscribe.
Terry Tennens, Chief Executive of SAIF, said it was high time all bereaved people across the UK were guaranteed a minimum set of standards from the professionals taking care of them at life’s most difficult time.
“Currently, anyone can set up a funeral directing business and there is no requirement for them to work to a minimum set of standards. Trade associations require their members to abide by a code of practice, but membership is voluntary and we are seeing too many cases of firms who don’t belong to an association operating in an unacceptable way,” Terry said.
He added: “All other care industries are regulated, so there is no reason why funeral directors to whom people turn in great distress should not be subjected to similar rules. The vast majority of SAIF members share concerns about standards and support regulation of the funeral profession.”
In respect of online pricing, Terry said SAIF’s leadership was set to discuss a commonly agreed set of funeral elements that would appear on a price list, to better help consumers make like-for-like comparisons. A price list should also include options for a simple or basic funeral and a traditional funeral, along with additional items such as flowers and orders of service. This could eventually form part of the association’s code of practice.
Despite concerns about poor practice, bereaved people should be reassured that the overwhelming majority of independent funeral directors operate to high standards. However, one firm operating below par is one too many.
Regulation of the funeral profession should be proportionate and informed by all stakeholders, with the views of independent funeral directors carrying as much weight in any process as those of the large corporates and cooperatives.
SAIF’s call for UK-wide regulation of the funeral profession comes ahead of the findings of a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) study of the funeral market.
A proportionate regulatory regime could address some of the transparency issues being examined by the CMA and ensure clients of all funeral directors are getting a good deal.
SAIF is to consult its members and the wider funeral profession on areas of focus for any possible regulatory regime which are likely to include:
Following a consultation exercise, SAIF is to write to the Westminster Government, Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies, stating its position on regulation of the funeral profession across all jurisdictions.
An open letter to SAIF, the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors from Cara Mair, Director, ARKA Original Funerals, sent 4th May 2018.
Dear all at SAIF
I write this to you as a longstanding member of SAIF, in the hope that you will not see this letter negatively, but more as a positive tool to allow you to look at how SAIF can move forward. I hope that this letter will begin a dialogue on how the training that you offer can be more inclusive and how, at the heart of this training, should be the empowerment of the community that we serve. Where we find ourselves today in this fast-changing society let us be the disruptors and not the disrupted. To be truly bold and take leadership in this area and create a legacy that other independent funeral directors can build upon.
I have worked in the funeral world since 1998, beginning my days as a chauffeur/bearer at the Co-op in Brighton. After that experience, I trained as a freelance embalmer and worked with many funeral directors across the South East. My first hand experience of working in this secretive funeral world was dismal and I was adamant that I would stay in this profession and make a difference. In November 2003 ARKA Original Funerals opened in Brighton and since then things have changed in the funeral world and there have been many reasons for this. From The Natural Death Centre and The Good Funeral Guide showing how we as a community can be more involved. To forward-looking, inclusive funeral directors such as ARKA, Green Funeral Company etc and of course technology allowing the public to be far more informed re choice and insight into the funeral process. All of these factors have been key to increasingly making a difference ensuring that funeral directors are held more accountable for the way that we work. I also believe that there are many things that would not have changed in the funeral industry if it were not for pioneers like those mentioned above.
With twenty years’ experience, I know of many people and organisations working within this industry who could put a comprehensive training programme together that would benefit us all. There is more and more discussion about how being more involved with the care of the deceased can help people through the grieving process. The communities that we serve should have the right to be supported in caring for their dead and not be ‘protected’ by the ‘professionals’.
I attended the AGM of SAIF in Brighton in March this year. The whole experience was very disappointing. There was also much disgruntlement about how SAIF was representing us all. To focus on pre-paid funeral plan selling as a way to secure your business in the future is an extremely narrow viewpoint. This is such a blinkered vision of how things could proceed. These plans are marketed so aggressively and instead of empowering the public to take control of decisions (as they’re so often marketed as) they are instead further disempowering people and misinforming many. This whole process is contemptible scare mongering and I am sure that you know that you will not keep up with the big boys in this area.
What I find so disheartening was how you totally dismiss the progressive movement that is happening, both with new independents opening up and also individuals supporting funerals in new ways. To move SAIF forward and to mark independent funeral directors distinctly apart from the corporates is to be outstanding in the quality of support we can offer in the way that we work and present ourselves. To work in a refreshing empowering way that the corporates cannot compete with.
The training that you offer, as you are probably aware, is out of date. You focus on what you can sell rather than what you can give. You come from a stance of protecting yourselves rather that empowering others. Your training should include how we communicate to the public by looking at changing the use of the language that is bandied around and more insight into how we can offer permission to people to be involved in looking after their own dead.
There is really nothing that sets you apart from the corporates in the public eye. You dress the same. You put false value in things such as cars. You are secretive. You pay no importance to the collection and ‘care of the deceased’.
I propose to you that your training should be developed to include a natural way of looking after a body and to become more creative in looking at the role of the Funeral Director in the 21st century. Here’s how it could be achieved.
Each organisation should have a representative who would be knowledgeable, capable and willing to support families with a more hands on approach in looking after their dead. This representative could also support the other staff that you have to ensure that the environment is supportive and safe.
Believe me, this will not only help your organisation, but will also give much more work satisfaction to the people that are involved in your company and you will feel prouder of the support that you can offer.
This letter comes from a place of caring and of concern that what you stand for will rapidly disappear if you do not drastically change what you are doing and how you represent others. I ask that you seriously consider the points I have raised and not hide from what needs to happen.
I am up for a conversation, to go through these points and to find some solutions as to how you will still exist in a more empowering way for both the public and your members within this fast-moving landscape.
I very much look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Cara Mair
Director, ARKA Original Funerals
We were pleased to receive an e-mail recently advising us that the National Association of Funeral Directors has appointed an interim CEO, some four months since the role became vacant.
It’s been quite a while without a steady hand at the NAFD tiller, and taking on the tasks that would normally be the responsibility of the CEO must have been immensely demanding on the current president, Alison Crake, her vice presidents and the officer team. We’re sure that they are all very pleased to have the esteemed Graham Lymn come on board to step into the empty CEO shoes, albeit temporarily.
As part of his role, Mr. Lymn will be ’assisting the Officer team with recruitment of a permanent incumbent and providing an extensive handover, enabling the new recruit to quickly understand the unique challenges of the funeral industry.’
We presume that this won’t take up all of Mr. Lymn’s time over the next six to nine months, so, from an interested outside observer’s point of view, we’d like to offer some suggestions of other areas that we think would be really productive for him to focus on, to help make the ‘Voice of the Profession’ relevant in today’s rapidly changing world of funerals.
According to Twitter, the website and an e-mail bulletin sent out yesterday, the Good Funeral Awards will be taking place this year in Bournemouth in September.
We think it worth noting that the Good Funeral Guide is no longer involved with these events and will not be attending.
We ended our involvement with the awards as joint organisers last year, having been very much part of the awards since they began in 2012.
The decision was taken for various reasons, but in essence, we feel that the time for competing against one other in funeralworld has come to an end and that progressive, intelligent people working together and collaborating in best practice is the way forward.
Across the UK, good people serving bereaved families face the relentless pressure of large corporates seeking ever larger ‘market share’, the growing issue of unregulated funeral planning, negative media coverage of the funeral industry, the race to the bottom in pricing, ‘ ‘disruptive’ online ‘experts’ adding their two penn’orth to information in the public domain – and the ongoing stress of working daily directly with death and the aftermath.
We feel that all who are trying to improve the way we do funerals in the UK are stronger together, supporting each other and sharing fellowship, rather than competing against each other, and allowing themselves to be set apart by judgements of who is the best in each field.
We also feel that the role of the GFG is done when it comes to awards within the funeral industry.
We want to concentrate on what we think essential. Reaching out from inside the funeral bubble of talking to each other about each other and actually talking to the people who matter most. The public.
The role of the Good Funeral Guide is, and always has been, to support, empower and represent the interests of dying and bereaved people, and we will continue to do our best to do so in the future, rather than getting sidetracked with event planning.
Last weekend, we despatched letters to the boards of trustees of every hospice in the UK to share our concerns about the new franchise offer that was launched at the Hospices UK conference the previous week.
Our misgivings about this venture are shared by a number of individuals and companies who gave permission for their names to be added in support. The letter is published in full below, together with the names of those who agree with us.
The Chair of the Board of Trustees
SAMPLE Hospice
December 1st 2017
Dear Trustees of SAMPLE Hospice
We write regarding the recent launch of Hospice Funerals LLP, of which you may well be aware. Should you not have heard of this new venture, it is a joint collaboration between St. Margaret’s Hospice Ltd. in Somerset and Memoria Ltd., owner /operator of a number of crematoria around the country and of Low Cost Funeral Ltd.
Hospice Funerals is offering all UK hospices the opportunity of a becoming a partner in their franchise funeral director scheme by becoming a ‘Hospice Provider’, entitled to operate exclusively within a defined area, offering undertaking services branded under the hospice name. For full details, please see the Hospice Funeral website https://www.hospicefunerals.co.uk/
The Good Funeral Guide wishes to draw the attention of the Board of Trustees to the very serious concerns that we have about this proposed new revenue stream generator, despite the public proclamations of how this will address the issue of funeral poverty and ‘bring choice, quality and affordability to families in our communities.’
As a trusted, not for profit, social enterprise company, wholly independent of the funeral industry, that has for years supported, empowered and represented the interests of dying and bereaved people living in the UK, we would be delighted to see a truly ethical, community focused undertaking service evolving from the hospice movement; indeed, we have a blueprint guide to how to set up such a model on our website which we developed in partnership with the Plunkett Foundation several years ago.
Unfortunately, this new model proposed by Hospice Funerals does not, in our opinion, fall into the category of an ethical, community focused service, despite the marketing hype.
The Good Funeral Guide is not aware of the successful application of any franchise model to the business of funerals. Franchise operations are best suited to selling merchandise, not personal service. The franchise model proposed by Hospice Funerals is wholly unproven.
The Good Funeral Guide contends that these figures are misleading, to say the least.
The ‘funeral market’ is, by admission of the directors of Memoria Ltd, already saturated with providers. In the town of Taunton, where the first Hospice Funerals unit is scheduled to open in early 2018, there are currently twelve funeral directors catering for the needs of local bereaved families. This in an area with a population of 109,000 (the borough of Taunton Deane) and an average UK death rate of 9.4 per 1,000.
Figures quoted by the representatives of Hospice Funerals at the launch of the scheme last week cited the average cost of funerals in some areas as being ‘well over £6,000’.
This figure was derived from the Royal London National Funeral Cost Index 2017 and was arrived at by adding the cost of a burial in a specific London Borough, Kensal Green, (£9,809) to the cost of a cremation in the same borough (£3,223) and dividing in two.
It is mysterious that the Royal London Report didn’t allow for the fact that almost 80% of UK funerals are cremations. A more accurate average would be to factor in the percentage split of types of funeral, (20 x £9,808 + 80 x £3,223, divided by 100), which would result in an average cost of a funeral in the most expensive location in the UK being £4,504, not the much more alarming figure of £6,516 quoted in the report.
Note: all monies that will be paid into a Hospice Funerals pre-arranged funeral plan will be held in a Royal London whole-of-life policy, indicating a close and perhaps unquestioning relationship between the two bodies.
Directly related to the above ‘average cost of funerals’, the prices of the funeral packages offered by Hospice Funerals range from £1,295 for an unattended service at a Memoria crematorium to £3,500 for a traditional service with a hearse and bearers at a crematorium of your choice.
In comparison with the inflated figures quoted as the cost of an average funeral, this might seem to be a wholly worthy attempt to address funeral poverty, as it was described at the Hospice Funerals launch, yet the prices of their funeral packages are equivalent with, and in some cases higher than, those currently charged for comparable services by most independently owned funeral directors.
As an example, two Good Funeral Guide Recommended Funeral Directors in the Taunton area (where the first white labelled Hospice Funerals unit will start operating in 2018) are both lower priced for the same traditional funeral service, with all third-party costs included:
Wallace Stuart Lady Funeral Directors (Bridgwater) £2,630.00
Crescent Funeral Directors (Taunton) £3,000.00
Hospice Funerals £3,500.00
The Good Funeral Guide is concerned that the figures quoted by Hospice Funerals could erroneously lead hospices to think that they would have a straightforward price advantage over competitors in offering a local undertaking service, when this would simply not be the case.
We also consider the employment of the name and reputation of hospice, both specifically in the use of the individual name of a local franchisee, and nationally in the use of the company name ‘Hospice Funerals’, to be a calculated, and indeed one could say cynical, attempt to persuade the public that this new undertaking model is simply an extension of the highly reputable and locally supported end of life care provided by their cherished local hospice.
The fact that it is in fact a white label operation, maximizing the use of the ‘brand name’ of the hospice in each area, controlled by Memoria Ltd, who have divided the UK into ‘catchments’ of 100,000 people (and who are proffering these 650 areas for sale at £10,000 p.a. franchise opportunities to hospices as a means of securing their much-needed income) seems to be lost somewhere in the marketing spin.
We would suggest any hospice considering entering an arrangement of this kind notes the following:
Reputational damage to individual hospices signing up to this opportunity could potentially be catastrophic. Legacy donations and in memoriam fundraising could be seriously impacted if families elect to use a hospice funeral home, as they could consider they have done their ‘giving back’ to the hospice through their payment of the fees involved with the funeral.
The move from being perceived as a deserving recipient of gifts and donations to being seen as a money-making business entity, competing with established, trusted and well-liked funeral providers, is a subtle but potentially disastrous one, impacting on the public perception that a hospice is a wholly altruistic organisation.
Comments on our blog post about the advent of Hospice Funerals have been overwhelmingly against the idea of hospices entering the supplying of funeral services.
Phrases used include ‘unethical’ (several times) ‘goes against every principle a hospice should stand by’, ‘will negatively impact their charitable and bequest income’, ‘conflict of interest’, ‘risk losing this public support’, ‘at what point does care and support for the dying and impartial advice given to a family suddenly at sea after a death turn into a sales opportunity?’
On social media, there has been a similar reaction. Questions have been asked about the arms-length relationship between a hospice and its funeral home – how will this work in reality? What will be the impact on the current relationship with local undertakers when the hospice enters the marker as a direct competitor? How will the new hospice funerals service be promoted to the community, and how will this be reacted to?
It seems to us that hospices will be carrying all of the risk in the hope of optimistically calculated but completely unproven rewards.
If SAMPLE HOSPICE is considering partnering with Hospice Funerals, we would counsel strongly that the trustees take heed of our concerns before making your final decision to risk your donated funds to venture into competition against the local funeral directors who work so closely with you to look after the families of those whose lives end in your care.
The Good Funeral Guide is supported in our misgivings about the wisdom of this new venture by the individuals and organisations listed below, some of whom may be known to you as local, independently owned undertakers who share our fears about this seductive offer being touted to hospices around the UK.
Should you wish to contact me directly about this I would be more than happy to discuss our collective concerns further. My e-mail address is fran.hall@goodfuneralguide.co.uk.
Fran Hall
CEO Good Funeral Guide CIC
On behalf of the board of directors of the Good Funeral Guide and the undersigned supporters.
A Oliver & Sons Funeral Directors
A.W. Lymn – The Family Funeral Service Ltd
Adrian Pink – Town & Country Funerals
Alistair Turner Funeral Directors
Allistair Anderson & Hasina Zaman – Compassionate Funerals
Amanda Pink – Evelyn’s Funerals
Andrew Dotchin (Reverend)
Andrew Smith Funeral Service
Angie McLachlan MA; BA Hons, BIE
Anna Briggs – Independent Officiator of bespoke funeral ceremonies
Anne & Simon Beckett-Allen – Rosedale Funerals
C Waterhouse & Sons
Carrie-Ann Rouse – Rouse & Co. Independent Funeral Directors
Carrie Weekes & Fran Glover – A Natural Undertaking
Claire Turnham – Only With Love
Claire Young – Young’s Independent Funeral Services
Clare Brookes – VW Funerals
Colin Liddell – Liddell Funeral Services
Coles Funeral Directors
David Hardie & Son Funeral Directors
David Holmes – Holmes & Family
Don O’Dwyer – O’Dwyer Funerals
E A Dodd & Son
Edward Towner – Arthur C. Towner Ltd
Emma Curtis – Secular Minister, Celebrant & Grief Counsellor
Eric Massie Funeral Directors
Gail Willington – Elizabeth Way & Company
Gordon Tulley & Alison Finch – Respect Woodland Green Burial Parks
Heathfield Funeral Service
Jacob Conroy & Sons Funeral Directors
James L Wallace Funeral Directors
Jane Morgan – Jane Morgan Ceremonies
Jeremy Neal – Rotherham Funerals
Jo Loveridge – Albany Funerals
John Beattie & Sons Funeral Directors
John Pinder – W. E. Pinder & Son Ltd
Judith Dandy – Dandelion Farewells
Judy Mansfield – Cherish Ceremonies
Karen & Julian Hussey – A. G. Down
Leverton & Sons
Louise Winter – Poetic Endings
Lucy Coulbert – The Individual Funeral Company & Coulbert Family Funerals
Like & Liz Farthing – Farthing Funeral Service
Maggie Brinklow & Tony Killen – Margaret Rose & Bespoke Funerals
Malcolm Jones – Molyneux Jones Family Funeral Directors
Mark Binnersley MPRCA Communications Consultant
Martin Stibbards – S. Stibbards & Sons
Matthew Lucas Funeral Directors
Michael & Clare Gamble – Michael Gamble Funeral Directors
Nick Armstrong – Armstrongs Funeral Service
Nikki Hill – Bright-Hill Funerals
Overmass & Chapple
Paul Burrows Gibson – Veterans Funerals UK
Paul Sullivan – Sullivan Funeral Directors
Peace Funerals
Peter Grenfell Funeral Directors
Poppy Mardall – Poppy’s Funerals
Philip & Sallie Evans – Sussex Funeral Directors
Rosalie Kuyvenhoven – Rituals Today
Robert Samson Funeral Directors
Rupert Callender – The Green Funeral Company & Callender, Callender, Caughty & Drummond
Saint & Forster Funeral Directors
Simon Helliar-Moore & Robert Helliar-Moore – Crescent Funerals
Simon Smith – Green Fuse, Heart & Soul Funerals
Southgate & Roberts
Tim Coombe – Senior Anatomical Pathology Technician
Tim Purves – William Purves Funeral Directors
Tilly Munro – Community Funeral Specialist
Toby Angel – Sacred Stones Ltd.
Tom Woodhouse Funeral Directors
Wallace Stuart Funeral Directors
W G Catto Funeral Directors
W G Potter
Wood & Hay Funeral Directors
There’s something afoot in funeral world. Letters have been pinging into the inbox of funeral directors around the country advising them of a shiny new entrant into the world of undertaking.
“Over the next few days you may read about a new funeral company called Hospice Funerals LLP. It has been set up by St Margaret’s Hospice of Somerset in order to allow local hospices to extend their care to the local community by providing a caring, transparent and personal funeral service..”
A joint operation between St. Margaret’s Hospice and Memoria, this partnership is, at first glance, a match made in heaven.
Expert end of life carers join with expert provider of state of the art crematoria and low cost funeral services to offer communities across the UK a new, better alternative when it comes to funeral arrangements.
But let’s take a closer look.
Memoria’s CEO, Howard Hodgson, is well known in the funeral world. Here’s a little background, taken from an article by Tony Grundy in 2015:
‘For example, in a classic UK television documentary some years ago, former undertaker and entrepreneur Howard Hodgson told of how he led the transformation of the industry through a combination of acquisition, consolidation, value innovation and cost management. In his book ‘How To Become Dead Rich’ Hodgson set out his vision of how to run his funeral business as economically as possible, with an efficient set of local operations providing up to several funerals in a day, making much better use of facilities such as cars, storage and sales facilities. Alongside this he pioneered a more extensive range of services, optimising the average price.
This hugely widened operating profit margin and increased return on net assets. This vision became the model of the Great Southern Group, which Hodgson sold out to and which, after a period of being owned by US company Service Corporation International, is now called Dignity, one of the UK’s top players. These changes also reduced competitive rivalry in the UK market, where a higher proportion of the market had previously been fragmented, made up of ‘mom and pop’ independents.’
St. Margaret’s Hospice announced their plans earlier this month, without mentioning their new partner. The role of funeral director was advertised at £36,000 plus car. One of their existing charity shops is being converted into suitable premises in Taunton – a town in which there are already 12 other undertakers.
The Hospice Funerals website states:
HOSPICE FUNERALS’ VISION
To provide all hospice communities with the choice and experience of hospice funeral services that uniquely reflect the dedication, warmth and reputation of the hospice movement – an extension of exemplary hospice care – caring, transparent and personal.
HOSPICE FUNERALS’ MISSION
To bring choice, quality and affordability to families in our communities, so that they can celebrate the lives of loved ones with a unique and individual funeral that respects their wishes. This is achieved by only engaging highly trained staff with unwavering attention to detail and compassion – so ensuring a caring, transparent and personal funeral to all whatever their budget.
This sounds absolutely wonderful.
Although the top benefit for hospices electing to become a provider listed in another part of the website is:
‘Participation in a new enterprise that will deliver sustainable and growing income going forward and thus helping to bridge the considerable funding gap that stands between government funding and the annual needs of the hospice.’
And in the brochure for ‘hospice partners’ it clearly states:
The partnership will operate as a franchise scheme. These are the facts:
Hmm. So, perhaps not quite so in line with the hospice movement set up to look after the dying and their families by Dame Cicely Saunders then.
It’s a franchise scheme, dressed up in the hospice’s clothes, making money for both the ‘hospice partner’ and Memoria alike.
Here’s what we think.
It’s hard to criticise the idea of the much loved local hospice continuing to care for those who have died after death (albeit charging for this part of their service, while everything else until the last breath is taken has been free of charge.)
Why wouldn’t you choose to use them?
Hospices are pillars of the community after all, caring for the dying in the most wonderful way. And your money will be going to help support this admirable cause instead of lining the pockets of those men in black, the stereotypical undertakers.
It’s easy to see what a brilliant idea this is – piggybacking on the reputation and respect held by the hospice to give an immediate advantage over the funeral directors who are so widely and relentlessly pilloried in the media as greedy, money-making vultures who prey on the vulnerable bereaved.
With the helpful assistance of the self-serving life insurance companies generating fear of soaring funeral costs in their annual cost of dying reports, and the media focus on funeral poverty (driven by high charges from corporate funeral businesses including Dignity, Howard Hodgson’s baby, plus austerity cuts and shortage of space impelling local authorities to keep raising the cost of cremation or graves), funeral directors en masse are tarred with the same brush.
The public won’t take much persuading to look elsewhere for help with organising a funeral. And it’s available to everyone, not just hospice patients – again, from the Hospice Funerals website:
‘It is important to note that it is intended that everyone needing the services of a funeral director will be able benefit from the caring, transparent and personal service offered by Hospice Funerals. Therefore, our services are available to everyone in the community – irrespective of whether or not they have been a hospice patient.’
Well, not quite everyone.
This from Howard Hodgson’s letter to funeral directors yesterday:
‘The Directors of Memoria have no desire to compete with its funeral directing clientele. Therefore, in order to prevent a conflict of interest, it has been contractually agreed that NO Hospice Funeral operations will be set up within a 20 MILE RADIUS of ANY existing MEMORIA crematoria.
This agreement will be on going and so will prevent funeral directors within the declared 20-mile exclusion zones from facing this new competition now or in the future.
We hope this act demonstrates our loyalty and gratitude to ALL of our funeral directing clients, whose close working relationship we highly value.’
Nice of him to consider how funeral directors might feel about this idea, although only the ones who operate in the vicinity of one of Memoria’s crematoria. The rest of the funeral world is clearly fair game.
What concerns us about this genius return to the world of funeral provision by Howard ‘How To Become Dead Rich’ Hodgson is what it will do to the wonderful, dedicated, desperately hard-working, ethically run, generous, kind and principled undertakers who have devoted their lives to starting up and running small businesses to serve their communities.
They are everywhere, working day and night to do the absolute best for the families they care for, often living hand to mouth and struggling to stay afloat as the corporate companies relentlessly target them by opening branches nearby. Many of them can be found here on our recommended funeral director list. We applaud and salute them for what they do, and we fear for their future with this latest new player in the game.
These really good people don’t have the massive marketing budgets to pay for TV advertising and PR campaigns, unlike Dignity, Co-operative Funeralcare and now Hospice Funerals, but they are providing vital services for their communities. And they are offering real, informed choice.
Hospice Funerals could spell the end for many of these artisan, genuine, small undertaking businesses, people who have been battling against the corporate expansion into funerals for years, as money men have scented the opportunity to get rich by taking advantage of economies of scale. The Hospice Funeral idea is likely to be a pressure too much for many if it spreads around the country.
If this idea were vision-driven, altruistic. non profit making, a real community venture motivated by a genuine desire to really make a difference to our society , we’d respect it, we’d be completely behind it and we’d be promoting it as far as we can reach.
But it’s not, it’s a clever, clever commercial move.
Maybe the public, those who volunteer and fundraise and support their local hospices might see it for what it is, but probably most people will just think it’s a great idea and not give it any more thought.
And sadly, we expect that the advent of this new hybrid beast is likely to be greeted with delight by hospices around the country as a means of generating the much needed income to keep them afloat. Without thinking about the wider implications.
We’ll find out tomorrow – it’s on the agenda at two high profile hospice meetings, the Hospice UK National Conference in Liverpool and the Legacy Foresight Workshop in London
We’ll be at both events.
