Caring for the dead at home: an exploratory study of home deathcare in England

Abstract

At a time when the natural death and home deathcare movements are gaining traction both in the UK and elsewhere, this article details an exploratory project on the barriers to and potential for caring for deceased people at home in England. A two-phase study, the paper uses data from a discourse analysis and interviews with deathcare professionals to show that there is limited information online on keeping the deceased person at home, and that participants felt that a lack of awareness was a significant barrier to families being able to make an informed choices about home deathcare. Including poor information provision, the paper identifies five reasons as to why there is a low uptake of home deathcare in England and makes recommendations for how each of these barriers may be overcome.