Our response to coronavirus (COVID-19) (last updated on 20th April 2022)
To protect the safety and wellbeing of the bereaved, our teams and funeral director colleagues, we are closely monitoring government guidelines in Scotland.
We are continuing to maintain many of the good practices established throughout the pandemic as follows:
- The legal requirement for physical distancing restrictions has been removed, however, it is advisable to keep a safe distance from other households.
- There is no maximum cap on the number of attendees at funeral services, however we must endeavour to avoid any crowding, and therefore will not exceed a comfortable number of mourners seated within the chapel.
- We encourage mourners to continue to wear face coverings in all indoor settings, unless exempt
- We continue to encourage the use of hand sanitiser in and around our buildings.
- We continue to ensure that where possible we have doors and windows open as much as we can to allow for good airflow throughout our buildings.
- We continue to offer the use of the Test & Protect posters to enable all visitors to ‘check-in’ at our premises, however, this is not a legal requirement.
- Singing is allowed in our chapels (however masks are encouraged to be worn).
- We continue to encourage as many mourners as possible to attend remotely by using our webcasting facilities.
- We are able to offer the witness charging of coffins as normal (face coverings are encouraged to be worn)
- We now allow for curtains to remain open until committal for mourners to walk up to the coffin to touch/place flowers.
- We will not return hymn books to our chapels until a later date.
- We remain happy for donations and collections to be carried out by the Funeral Directors using their own donation boxes or encourage families to make use of online charitable giving sites.
- We ensure that regular cleaning is undertaken in between services to multi-touch points (e.g., doorhandles, lectern & catafalque).
- We carry out a deep clean of the chapel at the end of every working day, so that it is ready for the following day.