Undertakers uncovered: undignified truths

Watch a funeral cortege pass along the road and there’s something profoundly moving about it all. The slow steady pace, the perfectly polished limousines, the black clad undertakers. It’s all so respectful, so dignified.

But what goes on behind the scenes in the funeral business? In tonight’s Dispatches on we investigate.

Prompted by complaints from the bereaved and concerns from people who work inside the industry, we decided go undercover and find out what really happens to the ones we love after they die. And the truth was far from dignified.

Industrial scale

We discovered funerals on an industrial scale. The bodies of the deceased, not lying in a silk lined coffin at a chapel of rest as their relatives thought, but stacked in metal racks in a warehouse or “hub”, as it’s known in the industry.

We saw evidence of a system at times so chaotic that staff were failing properly to keep track of which bodies were where.

As one elderly woman’s coffin is to be transported from the “hub”, staff are forced to take the lid off her coffin. As they squeeze the coffin into the packed van, the sight of her exposed face just centimetres from the coffin above is really uncomfortable viewing.

Does any of this matter? After all, they’re just bodies. They’re dead.

But of course it matters very much to the bereaved who’ve entrusted their loved ones into the care of a funeral director.

Ethical approach

And one in five of us entrust our dead to the company at the heart of our film tonight – Co-op Funeralcare.

A company which prides itself – and, more pertinently, markets itself – as a company which truly cares. It’s proud of it’s ethical approach. And it certainly seems to work. Last year it made profits of £52m. But how did it get there?

Tonight we see staff under pressure to sell. They tell our undercover reporter how they’re actively encouraged not to tell customers about the cheapest funeral package the company sells.

We witness a masterclass in how NOT to show the bereaved the cheapest coffin in the brochure and watch staff insist that families “need” to have their loved one embalmed, something that is simply not true.

Shocking findings

The managing director of Co-op Funeralcare told us he’s shocked by what we found and that it’s not representative of the service his company offers.

He’s ordered an immediate investigation and has pledged to take action to make sure such things never happen again.

He acknowledges that while Co-op Funeralcare is a business and needs to make money, it shouldn’t be making it at the expense of people at their most vulnerable.

And anyone who’s ever sat in shock in an undertaker’s, trying to “buy” their first ever funeral after losing someone they love, will know just how vulnerable you are at that point. That’s why you need to be able to trust the funeral company absolutely. For many, trust in Co-op Funeralcare will be shaken by tonight’s programme.