Bereaved families face 18-day wait for funerals
BEREAVED families have faced waits of up to 18 days for the funerals of their loved ones because of increased demand for cremations in West Norfolk.
The waiting list at Mintlyn Crematorium near Lynn has grown because of a high number of deaths in the current cold spell, a backlog from the Christmas and New Year shutdown and a large number of funeral directors using the crematorium.
In a letter in Friday's Lynn News, Pamela Gibson, of Mountbatten Road, Dersingham, told how her family's sadness at her mother's recent death "wasn't eased by the 18 days we had to wait for her cremation".
Mrs Gibson said it was not the funeral director's fault but it begged the question about whether another local crematorium was needed to increase capacity. She said: "Surely all encouragement should be given to opt for cremation over burial due to the shortage of land for burial sites?"
Another family had an aunt die on February 8 and they were offered a cremation date yesterday – 14 days later. They only got it quicker because they were prepared to pay extra for a Saturday time slot.
West Norfolk funeral directors told us that there has been a backlog for cremations at Mintlyn, but that is normal in the weeks after Christmas and new year because of the large number of elderly people who die at this time of year and the particularly cold weather.
They also pointed out that there is exceptional demand for cremations in the 11am to 3pm time bracket as families tend to live further apart and the bereaved like to allow time for their relatives and friends to travel to the funeral.
John Coggles, of AJ Coggles Family Funeral Directors at Lynn and Downham, said people willing to book early and later time slots at the crematorium could be accommodated in just over a week because very few wanted those times.
"But the majority of people have family travelling to Lynn and they are looking for the late morning and early afternoon times," he said.
"We have been very busy overall and the crematorium serves a wide area."
Andrew Thornalley, of Thornalley Funeral Services at Lynn and Tilney St Lawrence, said Mintlyn was now handling about 2,000 funerals a year and the pressure was only likely to ease when a crematorium being built at March in Cambridgeshire opened and took bookings from the southern part of West Norfolk and surrounding area.
With two doctors needing to sign cremation forms, it sometimes took three days to get the paperwork from Lynn's Queen Elizabeth Hospital and then the crematorium needed those papers three working days before the cremation, he pointed out.
"It's a problem to funeral directors and families," he said. "We like to do our best for the families and get the funeral quicker."
Paul Cook, of Chapmans Funeral Services at Swaffham, said: "Immediately after Christmas we all get busy in a very short space of time. They do 11 cremations a day at Lynn and when you are serving 20 to 25 funeral directors those spaces soon fill up.
"It takes time to get the paperwork done as well. Everything changed after the Shipman inquiry and now it can take two to three days to get cremation papers from the GP."
John Lincoln, of John Lincoln Funeral Directors at Hunstanton and Dersingham, said it had been "a bit busier than this time last year", but in another fortnight it should ease to a ten-day wait.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Saturday 26 May 2012
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