Papers & Speakers

Central to the FBCA’s purpose is supporting its members to fully adhere to the Code of Cremation Practice. First introduced in 1945, the Code of Cremation Practice is designed to support members in their operation and management of crematoria across the UK through an annual declaration. For many years now the Federation has carried out visits to member crematoria to ensure that the Code of Cremation Practice is being adhered to.

The Federation and its membership has faced and continues to face a number of far reaching challenges. In order to ensure the Federation remains fully relevant and supportive of its members in this changing landscape it commissioned a wide reaching review in 2018, which included an independent survey of its members.

A significant part of the findings of this survey related to the existing inspection scheme and highlighted that improvements and developments were needed to ensure the scheme adds value and enables ongoing development and improvements across the industry.

Cruse Bereavement Care, the leading bereavement support charity in the UK, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. This presentation reviews the past, present and future of bereavement support. It also looks at what we all can do to tackle stigma and talk more openly about death, dying and bereavement.

Dr Fletcher will give an update on the implementation of the new Medical Examiner system.

Alan is the National Medical Examiner for England and Wales, having been appointed in March 2019. He was Lead Medical Examiner in Sheffield until this appointment. He pioneered the medical examiner role since March 2008 as part of the Department of Health's death certification reforms and the experience gained has helped inform policy and strategy as well as the Francis report at Mid Staffordshire; he has personally reviewed over 22,000 deaths. He has responsibility for the training of prospective medical examiners as National Clinical Lead for e-learning and is a member of several DHSC committees, including the Death Certification Reforms Strategic Programme Board. He was Chair of the Royal College of Pathologists Medical Examiners Committee from 2015-2019. He maintains his clinical practice as Consultant in Emergency Medicine and General Internal Medicine at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.

The presentation will draw on Lee’s experience of creating a planning strategy for burial space in London in the 1990s, the principles within which were brought forward to inform the preparation of two recent research studies to inform burial and cremation space planning strategies in two English Districts, Harborough and Northampton. The presentation will discuss principles, approaches and mechanisms which can be used by local authorities in planning for their burial and cremation space needs as part of their wider local plans and development management.

Crematoria are key sites of world-view change in contemporary British society. This paper considers issues of ritual and body-processing whether in the ceremonies of formal religious, humanist, secular or other traditions, or in non-participative cremations. The potential of some British crematoria being simply sites of industrial cremation will be considered in terms of ethics, codes of conduct, ecology, and public demand, and in terms of human dignity, old age, and the hiddenness or publicity of death.

In this presentation Alun will explain the background to the scheme which was introduced after discussions with the ICCM, FBCA and APCC. He will show how the testing process is conducted by Intertek, a leading Quality Assurance provider to industries worldwide, and the results to date.

With interaction from the audience Alun will seek to gain their understanding of the process and learn what negative experiences they have had from accredited coffins.

A stalwart of the funeral world, Alun has been in funeral service since the age of 14 and attained his Diploma in Funeral Directing in 1981.

Alun retired from day to day funeral directing in August 2016 but has kept involved through the company he set up in 2015, Funeral Administration Ltd, through which he offers administrative support to organisations within the funeral profession. Until recently, Alun served as President of the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors for a second time. He is also keen to promote the next generation of funeral directors, having chaired the Independent Funeral Directors’ College between 2005 and 2008 and through his current role as Company Secretary at the British Institute of Funeral Directors.

Whether it’s commenting on changes in legislation, consulting with other like-minded organisations or providing a comment for the media – Terry is committed to ensuring the views of independent funeral directors are heard throughout the UK.

Together with the team at SAIF Business Centre, he is also a strong advocate for professional development and a believer that funeral directors must have access to expert advice and support if they are to continue to provide a service of the highest standard.

An MBA post graduate, Terry previously served as founding Chief Executive of International Justice Mission UK, part of IJM Global, the largest anti-slavery organisation in the world.

Judith will provide updates from the Ministry of Justice on coroner, burial and cremation law and policy.

Judith started her Civil Service career advising the Social Security and Child Support Commissioners before transferring to an administrative position at the Judicial Studies Board, and then to a policy role in administrative justice. In her current role, Judith provides advice to Ministers, coroners, burial and cremation stakeholders and others on the law and policy relating to coroners, burials, cremations and inquiries as well as dealing with the day-to-day handling of policy and casework, correspondence from MPs, coroners and the general public.

Judith was awarded an OBE for public service in June 2018.

With David Bowie’s decision to opt for direct cremation in January 2016, this type of disposal became far better known. With newspaper headlines such as ‘Bowie secretly cremated’ and ‘Doing a Bowie’, suddenly everyone was talking about this simple, cheap and easy way of dealing with a body. If it was good enough for David Bowie then what’s to stop any of us following suit. Surely it’s better for bereaved people. But is it?

This session will look at direct cremation from the standpoint of those who are bereaved asking questions including:

• Why might bereaved people opt not to have a funeral?
• Will this help their grieving? 
• Should we be doing more to ensure bereaved people know about what is involved?  

Debbie represented bereaved people on the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Funerals and Bereavement and was a member of groups including the Ministry of Justice Burial and Cremation Advisory Group, the Department of Health Death Certification National Steering Group, the National Cremation Working Group, the National Bereavement Alliance Steering Group, the Dying Matters Steering Group and the Life Matters Task Force. She led Cruse’s major incident response team following several incidents including 9/11 in New York. Prior to this, Debbie was a social worker specialising in child protection, disability and terminal illness. The respite, befriending and advocacy service she established won two national awards.

Since retiring from Cruse last year, Debbie has spoken at Singapore’s inaugural grief and bereavement conference; been accepted as a member of the International Workgroup on Death, Dying and Bereavement and become a community researcher with Birmingham University. She is also co-writing two books and joined the Council of the Cremation Society of Great Britain in February 2019.

Last year we released a paper entitled ‘What the Public think of Crematoria’. It was well received but led to more questions, for example: is there a difference between what people think of the building and the grounds; does the age of the building have an impact; if you ask about the cost of cremation in a different way will you get a different result; what are people’s priorities?

So we resurveyed and the responses threw up some interesting results. This presentation will look at what they were and what they might mean for crematoria operators and the wider funeral industry.

Running the website has meant dealing with people from all over the world and has given him unique access to the changes in how people are dealing with this stage of the bereavement journey.

His research work has focussed on where you can and cannot scatter ashes; from football grounds to National Trust properties. He has recently published an exciting piece of research about the public’s attitudes to crematoria.

Richard’s background is in the environment with over 25 years at the Environment Agency and the Department for Farming and Rural Affairs. His understanding of the impact of cremated remains upon the land, the water and the air is based on his work across water, soil and air quality.

Nick will give an overview of the UK companion animal cremation industry, as well as outlining the attempts by the APPCC to bring dignity and transparency of operations into universal effect for the benefit of bereaved pet owners.

We are living in times where every industry and sector are under increasing pressure to vastly reduce their environmental impact. Dr Sampson will discuss possible changes that can be made in the funeral sector to help facilitate its transition to greener operations.

The presentation will explore everything from the biological decomposition processes of bodies and cremated remains and limiting their negative impacts, to the potential PR and image benefits the funeral sector can gain from environmentally beneficial practices.

Caroline graduated in medicine from Nottingham University in 2003 and completed training in Anaesthesia and Critical Care in 2014. Since then she has been a Consultant in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Adult ECMO at Glenfield Hospital, Leicester.

She cares for patients requiring general and cardiac intensive care alongside stabilisation and transfer in of patients from units around the UK with life-threatening respiratory failure.

This presentation will discuss the merits of the CMA’s case for looking into the cost of funerals and cremations in the UK. It will detail the actual facts and suggest solutions which would benefit the public while allowing competition and choice to thrive.

He is largely recognised as the individual who transformed the funeral industry in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s. He is founder and CEO of Memoria, and has developed it into the third largest and fastest growing crematoria company in the UK today. In 2016 he founded Memoria Low Cost Funeral, the direct cremation arm of Memoria and has taken that company from a standing start to the largest Direct Cremation company in the UK.