Question reference: S6W-11251
- Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 29 September 2022
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Current status: Answered by Maree Todd on 24 October 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that those responsible for the practice of unlawful organ and tissue retention at Scottish hospitals between 1970 and 2000 are held legally accountable.
Answer
At the time when issues were raised in relation to organ retention, a package of work was completed. This included the work completed by the Independent Review Group on the Retention of Organs at Post Mortem Examination, which was established in September 2000 by the then Scottish Executive. The final report was published in November 2001.
And the Audit Scotland validation exercise, which was instructed by the then Auditor General for Scotland to undertake an exercise to validate the information provided to the Review Group by NHS trusts (now known as NHS boards).
Standards for the management of hospital post-mortem examinations were developed and subsequently updated in 2016 by Healthcare Improvement Scotland. The standards apply to NHS boards and staff involved in hospital post-mortem examinations, including the process for authorisation. This includes, but is not limited to, pathologists, anatomical pathology technologists, mortuary technicians, medical and nursing staff, staff involved in transportation of the deceased, and staff involved with bereavement care and support.
As well as this package of work, the Scottish Government created and implemented the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006 which updated the legislation around post-mortem examinations. This ensured that for hospital post-mortem examinations authorisation was required for a post-mortem to take place.