Customers return to full-service funerals with Dignity

Around half of funerals were full-service in the last three-month period.

People are paying for full-service funerals again (Jonathan Brady/PA) (PA Archive)

Funeral provider Dignity has convinced a growing number of its customers to take up its full-service funerals again after they dropped off during the pandemic.

The business said that 49% of customers had opted for its full service, back close to the levels before the pandemic.

At its low ebb in the second quarter of last year only 26% of the funerals that Dignity provided were the full service.

This rebounded to 40% in the last three months of 2020, and has been steadily rising since then.

We do not know what this winter will bring but we are determined that every family trusting Dignity with their loved ones will be well served

Gary Channon, Dignity

It said that operating profit had risen from £5.2 million in the third quarter of last year to £7.2 million the year after.

“There is a huge amount of positive change going on at Dignity as we position ourselves to be a growing and thriving business that serves families for their end-of-life needs,” said chief executive Gary Channon.

“I am really pleased with the progress so far and the general enthusiasm with which this is being tackled internally.

“We will have a lot more to say at the year end and look forward to sharing an update then.”

He said it was hard to predict what would happen to the business in the last three months of 2021, and the company will not give guidance to shareholders.

“We have been preparing for what might happen this winter so that we are ready to serve society the way we have throughout the pandemic, which is with a quiet and understated professionalism that masks the enormous and heroic efforts that go on behind the scenes,” he said.

“The more I have learned, the greater my admiration and I hope one day we will get to share some of that.

“We do not know what this winter will bring but we are determined that every family trusting Dignity with their loved ones will be well served.”