The government is facing calls to reconsider dropping a measure to help grieving relatives during the pandemic by allowing deaths to be registered online and over the telephone.
A leading North Yorkshire County councillor said while registrars were facing challenges as they had continued to deal with a higher than average number of deaths to register during the pandemic, it was particularly disappointing the dispensation allowing remote registration of deaths would cease at the end of March.
Executive member for climate change and customer engagement Councillor Greg White said the option had been much appreciated by relatives as it avoids the need to travel to a local office, especially if the relative is abroad.
He said there were “indications” from government what had proved to be a service improvement may be brought back in the future, but there was no indication of when that might be.
He said:
“This is not a decision of the county council. It’s a national decision. The best thing that we can do to get that to come back is for people to lobby their MPs to take this issue to central government.”
Comments
Add a comment