Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports from the Human Tissue Authority (1) that a memory stick containing images of post-mortems was left on public transport, (2) of multiple organs being lost or misattributed, (3) of organs being kept against the wishes of families, (4) of post mortems being carried out on the wrong bodies, and (5) the findings of the Chester Coroner that human tissue has been removed "without consent"; what action has been taken against those responsible for each such instance; and what steps they have taken to ensure no future such incidents occur.

The Government assesses data from the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) on reported incidents at quarterly accountability meetings.

When these incidents occur they are upsetting for the families of those involved; although they are rare, when they do happen we are assured that the HTA work with establishments to ensure that a thorough investigation takes place, and that improvements are made to reduce the risk of similar incidents happening again.