The answer to this question is that it depends on the circumstances of the person's death*. In the majority of cases the procedure is reasonably straightforward.
There are three things you must do in the first few days after someone dies.
Get a medical certificate from a GP or hospital doctor. You’ll need this to register the death.
In England, register the death within five days. You’ll then receive the documents you need in order to be able to hold a funeral.
Arrange a funeral, either by engaging the services of a funeral director or by arranging it yourself.
If a person dies at home
If a person dies at home, call their doctor and, if you are not a relative, notify their next of kin.
If there are no suspicious circumstances and the death was expected, the doctor will complete a medical certificate giving the cause of death.
The doctor will also give you a formal notice stating that the medical certificate has been signed and informing you as to how to register the death.
If the person is to be cremated, you’ll need two certificates signed by two different doctors. You can find out more information about this by visiting the Bereavement Advice Centre – www.bereavementadvice.org
If a person dies in hospital
If a person dies in hospital, the hospital will normally provide you with a medical certificate and formal notice.
The hospital will usually keep the person's body in the hospital mortuary until you or a funeral director has been arranged to either take it to a chapel of rest or to the family home, or you arrange to collect the body yourself.
If a person dies unexpectedly
If the family doctor hasn’t seen the person in the last fourteen days, or the death is unexpected, the death should be reported to your local coroner.
It is the local coroner's task to investigate any unexpected deaths in the community.
When a death is unexpected, the coroner may need to call for a post-mortem or an inquest to be carried out, in order to investigate the circumstances of the person’s death more thoroughly.
This may take some time, so be aware that any funeral arrangements may need to be delayed as a result.
*People can die at any age. We all hope that our lives will be long and well-lived, but this isn't always the case: an illness or an accident can cut a life short, babies can die before, during or shortly after birth. In other tragic cases, someone may take their own life or be murdered by someone else.
In some cases, we may have prior knowledge as to when we are likely to die, but in most cases we won't. One thing we do know is that eventually, we will all die one day.
For health and legal reasons, in the UK you need to undertake the steps above after someone dies.