NAFD excludes Dale and Sons until October 2028
The funeral home was accused of severe breaches of conduct such as not storing bodies correctly and not preserving the care of deceased people at all times
The National Association of Funeral Directors has made the decision to exclude Dale and Sons Funeral Directors in Denham, Uxbridge, over inappropriate conduct until October 2028.
News of the NAFD’s decision comes after the funeral home was accused of severe breaches of conduct such as not storing bodies correctly and not preserving the care of deceased people at all times.
The decision was approved by the association’s disciplinary committee, which is made up of chair Linda Ford, lay member Barry Picken and funeral director representatives Abi Pattenden, Emily Houghton and Jim Brodie.
It is understood that Dale and Sons declined to make representations at the disciplinary hearing after the allegations were presented to the company.
As a result, the disciplinary committee ruled that the Middlesex funeral home will be excluded from the professional body and will be barred from reapplying for membership for a period of five years.
Dale and Sons allegedly failed to follow the association’s code of conduct, which included acting in the clients’ best interests, maintaining the deceased individual’s dignity, promoting public trust, and properly managing the business.
As part of the decision to exclude the funeral provider, Dale and Sons have been ordered to remove NAFD signage from its branch, official paper, marketing materials, and website to “remove any confusion for bereaved families”.
According to the NAFD’s notice of expulsion, it is now recommending that people in Buckinghamshire who are seeking funeral services to visit funeral-directory.co.uk to find funeral directors who “abide by the industry’s standards”.
A spokesperson for Dale and Sons has told the Funeral Service Times: “The NAFD have published inaccurate information with defamatory statements, encouraging potential harm to our business. The NAFD are a trade organisation, not a governing body.
“We asked the NAFD on numerous occasions for clarification and validation for these derogative statements, to which they did not respond. We have an email thread to support all communication.”
Dale and Son’s spokesperson also maintained that the NAFD’s notice was non-factual, defamatory and inaccurate, which the funeral home believes intended to “purposefully cause damage”.
The spokesperson added: “We will and we are pursuing this further and have already brought a court claim against the NAFD.”
