Singapore, 23 June 2020 – The National Environment Agency (NEA), in consultation with the Association of Funeral Directors Singapore (AFD), has developed and released guidelines and new conditions of licence to licensed funeral parlours with embalming facilities, to improve and uplift the standards of funeral services in Singapore. This follows earlier sets of circulars to licensed funeral parlours, released on 3 June 2019 and 10 January 2020, reiterating their regulatory responsibilities, and advising them on certain baseline requirements of a proper system for body identification as well as control of access into and out of the licensed premises. 

New Conditions for Licensees 

2          NEA licenses funeral parlours with embalming facilities, to uphold environmental hygiene standards. Licensees are to follow sanitary requirements for fittings, furniture and apparatus. They must put in place proper access control to the premises, maintain records of the deceased handled, ensure proper management of embalming by-products, and restrict preparation work on bodies to the embalming room. This is to ensure proper maintenance of such premises, and prevent environmental public health or pollution issues.

3          Following engagement with the profession and the Association over the past year, NEA has issued new conditions to licensees. These include:

• Registering with NEA all embalmers who work at the licensed premises, and ensuring that the embalmers have attended the Basic Infection Control Course conducted by the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID), and have carried out embalming procedures on at least 25 deceased bodies locally, under the supervision of another registered embalmer.
• Allowing only embalmers registered with NEA to work at their licensed premises, and keeping an up-to-date record of embalmers, including their apprentices.
• Ensuring that any rooms/space used for the holding and/or preparation of bodies, including the embalming room, are kept restricted to authorised personnel only, at all times (also covered in earlier circular dated 10 Jan 2020).
• Ensuring that a system is in place to identify each body, from the time it is received, to the time it is removed from licensed premises (also covered in earlier circular dated 10 Jan 2020).

4          Licensees were informed of these tightened requirements on 22 June 2020, and NEA will be following up with inspections to ensure compliance. NEA will not hesitate to take firm action against licensees for non-compliance, including suspension or cancellation of the funeral parlour licence in the case of egregious offences. 

Guidelines for Handling Deceased in the Funeral Parlour

5          NEA and AFD have jointly developed guidelines for handling deceased in the funeral parlour. This will help to ensure that funeral directors and funeral parlour operators meet high public health standards, accord dignity to the deceased, and provide good service to the bereaved family members. These guidelines will be applicable to all funeral parlours with and without embalming facilities.

6          The guidelines aim to provide useful information and share industry best practices for practitioners in the Singapore funeral service sector. They outline the approach from collection of the deceased at the place of death, management of the deceased within licensed premises, preparation of the deceased, removal of the deceased from licensed premises, and the development of standard operating procedures. Some best practices include the provision of a logbook template, proper verification procedures between parties, a checklist for receipt of the deceased at the place of death, provision of coloured identification tags, and maintenance of the personal protective equipment (PPE) list within the embalming room. These guidelines are available on both the NEA and AFD websites. Members of the public may refer to the NEA website link at www.nea.gov.sg/after-death-services/guidelines for more information on these guidelines. 

7          Mr. Ang Zisheng, President of the Association of Funeral Directors (AFD), said, “Funeral directors play an important role in the grief journey of the bereaving families we serve. These new guidelines, jointly developed by AFD and NEA, encourage funeral professionals to practise them diligently according to our code of conduct, to further enhance professional funeral services in Singapore. AFD is always sharing funeral best practices with NEA, and believes that the profession will continue to evolve with improvements to serve Singapore better, as it works in tandem with NEA.”

Raising Standards for the Funeral Service Industry

8          Funeral parlour operators and funeral directors have a responsibility to maintain high standards of service and accountability, to ensure that there is proper identification and respectful management of the deceased who are placed in their care.

9          With our aging population and growing demand for after-death services and facilities, this will drive the demand for after-death services infrastructure, as well as industry manpower to support the provision of such services. As the lead planning agency for after-death facilities and services, NEA will continue to work closely with the Association and industry stakeholders, to review further areas for improvement and uplift the professionalism and standards of the funerary services industry.

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