Gloucestershire doctors receive £230,000 per year in "ash cash" payments

12.00.00pm GMT Tue 19th Jan 2010

Doctors working for Gloucestershire Hospitals earn almost £230,000 a year in so called 'ash cash' payments made by grieving families, figures released today by the Liberal Democrats have revealed. The payments are made to doctors to sign a form releasing a body for cremation.

Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Gloucester, Jeremy Hilton said:

"This is a well established practice that I believe should stop. How can doctors justify taking money off grieving relatives when this just involves a doctor completing a form to approve a cremation.

"People are at their most vulnerable after the death of a loved one and the last thing they need is these extra charges. This is yet another Labour stealth tax.

"The NHS is meant to care for people from the cradle to grave but these charges undermine that principle.

"The Government must take action to put an end to this practice as soon as possible as it simply cannot be justified."

Ends...

Notes to Editors:

1. Before a deceased person can be cremated, two certificates stating the cause of death have to be signed, one by the doctor who attended the deceased before death, and the other by a doctor of at least five years' standing. http://www.justice.gov.uk/about/docs/cremation-doctors-guidance.pdf

2. Normally the undertaker arranges for the certificates to be signed and pays a fee (often known as 'ash cash') to the two doctors. The amount of the fee is then included in the charge which the undertaker makes to the deceased person's estate. Doctors currently receive £73.50 for each cremation form they sign on top of their NHS salaries.The fees for forms 4 and 5 are paid by the funeral director (who will almost invariably pass the cost on to the relatives) Further information can be found here: http://www.bma.org.uk/employmentandcontracts/fees/mafees.jsp?page=4

3. Freedom of Information requests have revealed that doctors in hospitals across the country received £14.7m in payments for filling out Cremation Forms last year.

4. Figures for Gloucestershire between January and March 2009 show that £56,742 was collected in fees following the deaths of 386 people. This sum equated to a figure of £226,968 for a full year.