Human tissue storage fears

The practice was described as “grotesque” by Ministers.

Worse still was to follow – Birmingham’s Diana Princess of Wales Children’s Hospital and the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool had also been harvesting organs and tissues. Both had received cash donations after giving glands, removed from live children during heart surgery, to a pharmaceutical company for medical research.

It is why the Human Tissue Act was introduced in 2004 – Tony Blair’s government vowed that families must never again suffer the indignity and torment of knowing that body parts had been removed from loved ones before they were laid to rest. The penalty, the threat of a three-year prison term, was supposed to be a deterrent.

It is this context that makes today’s Yorkshire Post revelations about possible malpractices at Hull Royal Infirmary’s mortuary even more disturbing – the sound intentions of Mr Blair’s government were supposed to prevent post-mortems on children being carried out “without valid consent” and bring about even more stringent rules on the storage of human tissue samples.

These concerns only came to light after the body of former paratrooper Christopher Alder, who had died in the custody of Humberside Police, was found at the mortuary 11 years after his supposed burial. Given this, it is truly shocking that consent forms were thought to have been “improperly” completed “at least 25 per cent of the time”.

Of course there will be occasions when body samples need to be saved – whether it be to assist a criminal inquiry or because the family concerned want to help scientists develop cures for diseases like cancer.

As such, an urgent inquiry – independent of the Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust – must be carried out. In the meantime, all medical staff should be reminded of their obligations under the human tissue legislation so the torment of relatives is not compounded by mistakes that should have no place in today’s NHS.

No confidence

HOW can Yorkshire residents have any confidence in the process which will determine the fate of some of the county’s biggest museums when the board of the Science Museum Group is so dominated by members from London and Cambridge?

This was the point that the Liberal Democrat peer David Shutt, a former Calderdale councillor and director of the Joseph Rowntree Trust, was making after it emerged that either York’s National Railway Museum or the Bradford-based National Media Museum could close under a cost-cutting plan.

He was not the only person to be surprised that 22 out of the 24 board members hail from the capital or Cambridge. There were gasps of astonishment from peers when he raised the issue in Parliament.

Little comfort could be drawn from the response of Lord Gardiner of Kimble, a Government whip who failed to convince peers when he pointed out that the Science Museum’s chairman, Doug Gurr, hails from West Yorkshire. He conceded that he had “an uphill task” convincing peers about the process now underway, a task made even greater by reports that Wakefield’s National Coal Mining Museum may also be affected.

Yet, irrespective of the number of board members with links to the North – the broadcaster Janet Street-Porter has a property near Harrogate – these museums would not be facing an uncertain future if more time had been devoted to the effectiveness of their day-to-day management.

Furthermore, the definition of the word “national” is critical. These priceless exhibits are supposed to be for the benefit of the whole country, yet it is inconceivable that such a threat would exist if the railway and media museums were based in London.

A health warning

IT is right that doctors should be the subject of regular scrutiny, even though they can opt out of new league tables which will assess their effectiveness.

That said, the Department of Health needs to be aware of two points moving forward. First, the judging criteria should examine the after-care that is given to patients – the financial strain on the NHS could be eased significantly if so many individuals did not require follow-up treatment because of lapses in their care. This failing has been overlooked for too long.

Second, there must be a realisation that every operation is different – one reason why the future of children’s heart surgery across Britain is in so much turmoil is because it was difficult to gain accurate data from different units that could then be used for comparative purposes.

It would be regrettable if 
a surgeon was marked 
down because they undertook high-risk operations where a patient’s chance of survival was, say, less than 50 per cent. As such, the appropriate health warnings need to accompany the introduction of these league tables.