The Government is aiming to develop a digital service for the registration of deaths in England and Wales.
HM Passport Office and the Cabinet Office are working on the plan with the aim of having a beta service in place by April of next year.
They have published a market notice for a delivery partner, stating a number of service outcomes including a capacity to register deaths online, a notification and status tracking capability and online data capture and case working for registrars.
There is also a plan for the system to be integrated with NHS digital systems, reflecting the fact that the registration of deaths involves the health service and medical examiners – along with local authorities, funeral directors and support groups.
Sensitive journey
“Citizens are often navigating several parallel journeys at what is typically a very sensitive time,” the notice says. “Citizens need a service that is informative, sensitive, straightforward and as seamless as possible as they navigate between organisations.
“Registrars need the requisite information in order to be able to create a registration and assure it.”
Pre-discovery work has already been carried out and the Passport Office plans to set up a team to work on the project.
It has emphasised its use of AWS platforms for digital services and said the delivery partner will be expected to work within its current infrastructure.
The existing service involves a combination of manual operations and legacy technology and handles around 500,000 registrations of deaths per year.
Image from iStock, Studioportosabia
