Funerals inspector acts over wrong body in mortuary

FUNERAL directors have been criticised over a body mix-up and damaged coffins in their first official inspection report.

Natalie McKail, Scotland’s new inspector of funeral directors, revealed a number of mistakes that have left grieving families distressed in her annual report into the industry.

The wrong body was taken from an NHS mortuary for a cremation because there were two dead people with the same name being kept there.

Miss McKail said she was investigating a firm that handed over a coffin with leaking bodily fluids which contaminated a crematorium and damaged a coffin at another funeral.

She was appointed last year following a review of crematorium practices ordered after the baby ashes scandals in Glasgow and Kirkcaldy, Fife, where bereaved parents were denied access to their infants’ remains.

She is due to recommend to ministers by the end of the year how the profession should be regulated, potentially through a licensing system.

Paul Stevenson, president of the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors Scotland, which represents three-quarters of firms, said: ‘It is reassuring that where the inspector has highlighted a need for improvements at funeral parlours, the response from those who have fallen short has been co-operative.’

‘Response has been co-operative’