Practicalities of transporting dead bodies
See the Health (Burial) Regulations 1946.
This legislation is mainly about registration of funeral directors. Part 7 has details about "Handling and transportation of dead bodies.”
Section 36: where death resulting from a communicable disease (where anyone handling or touching the body might also be at risk), the body should be carefully packaged. The requirements include that the body should "be placed in a coffin and entirely wrapped therein in a sheet saturated with an approved disinfectant; (the handler) shall place in the coffin absorbent material sufficient in quantity and so disposed as to prevent any liquids from escaping from the coffin (and) shall cause the coffin forthwith to be closed and not thereafter to be opened except on the order of a coroner.
Section 35:
Every person undertaking the preparation of a human body for burial—
(a) shall before a nuisance is created by decomposition ... cause it to be buried or removed pending burial to a mortuary or reception room or placed in a coffin hermetically sealed:
(b) if the body is in such a condition that fluids are likely to escape from it before burial shall cause it to be cavity-embalmed or placed in a coffin with sufficient absorbent material to absorb all such fluids, and in either case if a Medical Officer of Health or Inspector of Health or Sanitary Inspector directs, place it in a coffin hermetically sealed.
Section 38:
No person shall remove a dead body from a mortuary except in a coffin or other suitable receptacle of a kind usually used by funeral directors.
Section 39:
Any person in possession of a vehicle in which a dead body has been transported and which has been fouled by discharge from the coffin shall forthwith cause the fouled portion to be cleaned and disinfected with an approved disinfectant.