What to do in the first 48 hours after someone dies

Almost nothing has to happen immediately, and being told that is usually a relief. What follows is the order things actually come in, in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland differ in the detail, and the registrar will tell you how.

First, the medical certificate

Nothing else can start until a doctor has issued the medical certificate of cause of death.

If the death was at home and expected, call the GP surgery, or 111 out of hours. If it was unexpected, call 999. If it was in hospital or a care home, the staff will start the process and tell you who to speak to, usually a bereavement office that will ring you within a day or two.

Sometimes the death is referred to a coroner. This is routine, it is not an accusation, and it does delay things. If it happens, the coroner's office becomes your point of contact and will explain the timings.

Then the funeral director, if you want one

You can call a funeral director at any hour, and most people do this before registering the death. They will collect the person and hold them, which takes the most immediate pressure off.

You are not committing to anything expensive by making that call. You are also allowed to ring three, ask what each would charge, and choose. Prices vary enormously between firms in the same town, and a good one will give you a written breakdown without being asked.

If the person had a funeral plan, say so on the first call.

Registering the death

Within five days in England and Wales, eight in Scotland. It is done by appointment at a register office, and you should book the appointment as soon as you have the medical certificate.

Take what you can find: NHS number, birth certificate, marriage certificate, and the address and occupation of the person who died. If you do not have all of it, go anyway. The registrar deals with incomplete paperwork every day.

Order several copies of the death certificate while you are there. Banks and insurers each want to see one, and buying more later costs more and takes longer. Five is a reasonable number; ten if their affairs were complicated.

Ask the registrar about the Tell Us Once service. It reports the death to HMRC, DWP, the DVLA, the Passport Office and the local council in one go, and it saves weeks of separate phone calls.

What can wait

Almost everything. Banks, utilities, subscriptions, pensions, the will, the house: none of it is urgent in the first two days, and doing it badly while exhausted creates more work.

Two exceptions worth handling early: if the person lived alone, make sure the property is secure and any pets are cared for.

The thing people forget

Find the phone and make sure someone knows how to unlock it.

This sounds trivial next to registering a death. It is the single most common regret we hear. Modern phones are where all the photographs live, and once nobody can get in, they are effectively gone. Apple in particular will usually require a court order without a Legacy Contact set up in advance.

While you are there, write down the passcode somewhere the family can find it, and do not factory reset anything, however tidy it would feel.

If people are asking what they can do

They will ask, constantly, and having an answer ready saves you from repeating "nothing, thank you" forty times.

Useful ones: someone to answer the phone for a day, someone to take the children out, someone to sit in the house when the funeral director visits, someone to start collecting photographs. That last job is enormously useful, takes the volunteer days, and costs you nothing but the asking.

And on being told to look after yourself

People will say it and you will nod. Two practical things that genuinely help: eat something at roughly the usual times, and let somebody else drive.

The paperwork is grinding and strangely absorbing, and there is a fortnight ahead of it. None of it needs to be finished this week.

Kitty — Kitty writes and edits the Carn journal.