1. When someone is taken into a funeral director’s care, they must be given a unique identifier.

At Pure Cremation, we use hospital-style tracking to ensure the identity of someone – from the moment they are taken into our care, to the return of their ashes to loved ones.

Everyone in our care also has their own unique ceramic disc, placed in the coffin with them before the cremation, It survives the cremation intact and is returned to loved ones with the ashes, guaranteeing their identity.

2. Once taken into care, someone should be placed in their own, new coffin, and the mortuary they are kept in should be refrigerated.

Everyone in our care is placed in their own coffin (which bears their name) upon arrival, resting peacefully with us. Until we are ready to bring them into our crematorium for the committal, they will rest in our mortuary which is chilled.

As with some other principles in this code of practice, this is not a legal requirement in the UK, and funeral directors are free to keep the deceased in a back room of their funeral parlour unrefrigerated, but we believe this should not be permitted.

Pure Cremation’s mortuaries can be large facilities. We take people into our care from anywhere in mainland Britain, and will usually take them to one of our mortuaries first, before later transporting them to our crematorium in Andover.

Our mortuaries are not places for families to visit, and their appearance from the outside is functional, not fancy. However, inside our mortuaries are modern, professionally-maintained, sensitively-managed and the deceased are treated with care and respect.

3. All funeral premises should be secure and monitored.

At Pure Cremation, our mortuaries and our crematorium have CCTV and sound recording, as an extra layer of security and protection for those in our care. Access to our facilities is only gained with a unique ID card which records the movements of our teams, wherever they are.

We also regularly welcome the council, Environmental Health Officers and other trade bodies to inspect our facilities. Families are also welcome to visit our crematorium, which is set in 10 acres of parkland in Andover – just call to make an appointment.

4. Pricing should be transparent, and costs considered.

For instance, in consideration of cost, our private ambulances may transport more than one person (each in their own coffin, kept separate and secure in a special rack), to our crematorium in Andover.

This is much more environmentally-friendly and cost-efficient, and so helps us offer a lower price to families who choose our service. It is also very common for funeral directors to transport more than one person at a time, funeral directors typically only use a hearse for the final journey.

Our prices are shown on our website and are clear. And Pure will never try to sell someone an additional service or more expensive funeral.

5. Staff should be trained and respectful.

At Pure Cremation, many of the team have worked in the funeral profession for many years. All our frontline team are DBS checked. While we do employ people new to the profession, they receive training and support and will only work under supervision until they are fully approved.

We also support formal qualifications – for example, our crematorium manager is one of only a few people in the last 10 years to have received the Eickhoff Medal for her exam performance from the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management.

6. Families should be kept informed at every step.

One of the advantages of a direct cremation is that it is typically arranged and conducted more quickly than a traditional funeral. Whether an urgent collection from home or collection from a hospital, a pure cremation will typically take around two weeks from the moment we are called.

We will then arrange to return the ashes by hand, which may be another two weeks or so from the cremation date.

At every step, we keep families informed. Whoever a family first speaks to in our Care Support team is the person who will continue to be their point of contact throughout. We will keep the family informed as to where their loved one is and the date of the cremation and when the ashes will be returned.

7. With regard to funeral plan monies, the money should be protected.

Before funeral plans were regulated by the FCA, there were appalling incidents of companies going bust and money that people had paid into a funeral plan being lost.

Now funeral plans come with Financial Services Compensation Scheme Protection. When you buy a plan, your money is placed in an independent trust, ready to pay for the funeral when you need it.

As an extra level of safety, the trust at Pure Cremation is reinsured with Munch Re, the world’s biggest insurer. This means that instead of investing the trust money, it is kept completely safe with Munich Re; no-one at Pure Cremation can access the money, which is released to pay for each individual customer’s funeral as needed.

We are proud to be part of the funeral profession, and we think regulation will only strengthen it, ensuring a high, consistent standard for everyone and giving families confidence that their loved ones will be treated with respect and care.

If you have any questions, please get in touch and we will aim to reply with two working days.