Mortuary Technician

Katie's job title is Anatomical Pathology Technologist and Mortuary and Post-mortem Services Manager at West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

What I do

I care for deceased people. I also work with pathologists to assist during post-mortems, and I liaise with police and coroners. I also look after family members who may wish to visit deceased relatives.

How I became a technician

I am dyslexic, and I wasn’t good at school. I left with a couple of GCSEs, but I always enjoyed biology and sciences. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I am very lucky to love a job that I fell into by accident, and think that I am good at it. I worked as a cleaner in a hospital, so I knew that death was a part of life. When I was 17, I started to think about where dead people go and who looks after them. Working in a hospital, I learned that the deceased were taken to what is called a mortuary. I started asking questions about whether I could work there, and I was told that it is not for girls! I asked for career advice and was given information about being an undertaker, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I mentioned it to a few friends, and by chance a friend’s dad saw a job in the paper for a trainee mortuary technician – so I applied and got the job.

I was a very naïve 19-year-old and while I knew that there would be deceased people, I thought I would be booking them in. I hadn’t heard of post-mortems or autopsies. On my first full day in the job, I was told I was going into the post-mortem room and oh my word! I stood with my back against the wall with a mask on and was overwhelmed. I felt a bit faint, so I left the room, gave myself a talking to and went back in. I remember so clearly the doctor asking me if I knew the difference between a left lung and a right lung, and he showed me. Suddenly, I was really interested. It took me a few weeks to adjust, but it was my interest in the human body that made me stick at the job. I was always asking questions. I have now been working in mortuaries in this profession for over 22 years and I have been a manager for ten.

A typical day in my
working life

I work 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. Although there is a lot of paperwork involved, I never know what I am coming into. One phone call can change everything. Overnight, the deceased are brought into my team’s care, either from the community or hospital wards. The first job is to make sure they have ID bands on and that everything is correct and to check their personal property and list it. While post-mortems are only a small percentage of what we do, it is a large part of our training. If there is a post-mortem, one of my team will remove all the internal organs and take any samples for toxicology. They’ll assist the pathologist in collecting any further samples, keeping detailed records of everything.

All the internal organs are returned, and they’ll reconstruct the deceased, wash, and dry them, and make sure they look neat, tidy, and respectable and return them to the fridges. Finally, all the equipment and the room used are disinfected and cleaned. All notes taken need transcribing and filing, as detailed records must be kept. In amongst all of that, we take phone calls from relatives who want to know if they can come and see their loved-one, and calls from the coroner’s office or the police. The door is also often busy with undertakers wanting to bring the newly deceased in or collect the deceased. We also meet families and support them.

The work we do is sensitive, but no two days are ever the same and it’s interesting and rewarding.

The advice I would give to a younger person

Nowadays, when trainee jobs come up, they are highly sought after. So, it is about doing your homework and understanding the role. There are things you can do that show you are willing and the ideal candidate. Use resources on the internet, such as the Association of Anatomical Pathology Technology, which describe what the job is. Undertakers sometimes take on work experience students. We are heavily regulated by the Human Tissue Authority, so if you want to impress at interview, drop that in and it will put you above some people. Education-wise, although biology and anatomy are not essential, it will give you a head start. Don’t automatically think forensics though, because although we do marry up on some things, we are not the same thing. My advice would be to contact as many mortuaries as you can and ask for advice.

A little more about
my everyday role

The most exciting thing I’ve achieved so far in my job

I have been involved in pandemic planning for years and everyone always assumed it was going to be a slow build thing. I remember the first phone call to say, “You have your first COVID death”. I have a strong memory of two of my senior managers standing in front of me saying, “Oh, it looks like you’ve got everything under control”, but underneath I was like a swan paddling frantically under the waterline. COVID was scary at the beginning because we weren’t sure how infectious it was after death and so everyone had concerns about staff, family and friends. Because it was such an unprecedented situation, I was getting lots of people from within my local area, such as undertakers, other mortuaries and colleagues asking, “What protocols are you following?”, so I was trying to help other people as well as managing my immediate team. I have a vivid memory of getting a call on a Saturday night saying, “Your mortuary is full, Kate”. So, I assembled the team and I just remember them looking at me (their eyes just above their masks) asking, “What are we going to do?” In some respects, I had to make it up as I went along. My team members are quite young in terms of the profession, with five years, two years, one year, and just one month’s experience. So, they were all looking to me to guide them and lead them. I had senior managers asking me what the mortuary was doing. It was very difficult and not like anything I had experienced before. I think I made mistakes and could have done some things better, but we managed to keep the whole team safe from COVID. We looked after everybody to the best of our ability and that has been seen and rewarded, not just verbally, but we have won some awards from the community for the part we played. So, we did okay.

The next steps in my career journey

I never thought I would get this far, to be honest. I have some health issues, which mean I can’t do post-mortems anymore, which is a real shame, so I am desk-based. I love this job so much and to do anything else would never really compare. It’s not just a job for me – it is a passion.

Find out more about this role

Discover what qualifications you’ll need, how much you can earn, and what the next steps are.

Nine apprentices sitting on sofas socialising

Meet other technicians

Read more real life technicians stories, see what they do every day, and how they got started.