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Coroner, sorry were Closed


This is a copy of a letter I sent today to the County Council/ Police & Local MP Robin Walker

I hope that that this letter reaches you in good health & spirit. I would like to take this opportunity firstly to thank your Council for the great service that we received in our time of difficulty & secondly to ask for some assistance in a matter that affects non-Christian Faith communities within Worcester & the Shire.

Over the weekend my aunt passed away at the Worcester Royal Hospital & we found ourselves in a awkward situation where we needed a death certificate issued, so that the body could be released for burial preparation. Your Registrar Ros Parker went out of her way to to come in and help us to sort our matter out & issue the family with a death certificate. She kindly explained all the procedures & steps required so that our passage would be made easier.

However everything went according to plan except that we unable to make contact with the coroner. I tried all avenues , from looking on your web-site which lists a number which asks you to ring the police for an out of hours service. Consequently we tried the police who would not release the information due to data protection issues. After this failed, I contacted Mark Broughton Local Police Officer for Cathedral Ward, who stated that they did not have this information at all. After exhausting these options and contacting Cllr John Campion who was extremely helpful but did not have any other out of hours number, we returned to Ros Parker who tried to contact the coroners service for us. She was unsuccessful but did manage to find out that, no out of hours service exists for the coroner in the County and that we would be unable to do anything about till Tuesday morning.

As you can appreciate this has caused the family unnecessary stress & anxiety by not being able to proceed with the funeral & burial service. I ask kindly by appealing to you from not only my personal experience but from others that have had to face this difficulty in the past & those yet to experience it, that this be reviewed & that provision is made for an out of hours service. It is I believe an opportunity to bridge the gap that currently exists in the whole process of the excellent service that you provide and would enable a grieving family/community to help the deceased soul's transition from this world to the next as quickly & smoothly as possible.

I trust that this would be something that you can consider as a sensitive issue that needs to be handled delicately and pray that you are committed to a positive outcome of this situation.

Kind regards.

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