The person who has died will need to be formally identified by the person named by them as the next of kin. The next of kin may also need to give permission for a hospital post-mortem examination if the cause of the death has to be confirmed.

However, a coroner's post-mortem examination may be carried out without consent.

The body will then be laid out and kept in the hospital mortuary until you arrange for the funeral directors, (Burton’s Funeral Home) family or whoever you chose to collect it. If you choose, funeral directors will take the body to their chapel of rest until the funeral takes place. Staff in the hospital or care home will keep safe any belongings that the person who has died had in hospital until the person administering the estate arranges for them to be collected. They'll issue a receipt when the belongings are collected.

If you know that the person who has died wanted to donate organs or their body to medical science, it's best to tell hospital or care home staff as soon as possible. Each hospital and care home will have their own policies for dealing with this. Hospital staff may approach you if they feel others could be helped through organ donation. Organs will not be taken without your permission. If the deceased wanted their body to be donated to medical science, contact the Human Tissue Authority (HTA). Not all bodies will be accepted for example, if there has been a post-mortem examination or if organs have been removed.

The answer is a bit different, depending on whether a sudden illness or sudden death is involved.

See also: Hearing Loss Signs help, it is usually advisable to call 911, where operators can usually dispatch the nearest ambulance service. Beware, however, that unless the ill person is wearing a "comfort care only" necklace or bracelet or some other locally-acceptable sign of not wanting heroic life-saving measures to be performed, emergency personnel who are responding are duty-bound to provide them.