Mortuary service loses human organ (From Haringey Independent)

Haringey Mortuary service loses human organ

11:26am Wednesday 20th March 2013 in News By Bruce Thain

A human organ was lost by the borough’s mortuary service for ten months.

The incident at the mortuary service run by Haringey Borough Council happened in May 2011 but was only discovered in March 2012.

It was also revealed the service found an organ after it had released the body to the family and had failed to report the matter to the HTA by the required deadline.

Opposition Liberal Democrat councillors discovered the incidents after contacting the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) which regulates the mortuary.

They have attacked the council for its running of the service. Group leader Councillor Richard Wilson said: “This is truly appalling. Local residents will be astounded that such horrible mistakes can repeatedly occur at our public mortuary.

“I can only imagine the distress of the families affected by the terrible errors made by Haringey Council.

“Councils are supposed to provide a good service from cradle to grave but as the past few weeks have show Haringey’s Labour run council is incapable of getting even the basics right.

“How many more mistakes have to be made before the council's Labour leadership get a grip? It can't be right that very sensitive services like the mortuary can be almost entirely run by temporary staff.”

Councillor Wilson added: “I will be demanding a full explanation from the council about how these serious mistakes have been allowed to occur, and why they have been kept secret from councillors and the public for so many months.

“The residents of Haringey deserve good services that are respectful and caring - this clearly isn't the case at present. Residents have been let down yet again by Haringey's Labour-run council and this is simply unacceptable."

A spokeswoman for Haringey council said: "We recognise that there have been some issues with the mortuary in the past, in response to this the HTA have carried out inspections and we also conducted thorough internal audits of the service last year.

“A full action plan was put in place to address all the issues identified and all recommendations have been fully implemented.

“On the basis of those improvements to the mortuary service, the HTA watchdog confirmed in October 2012 that they are satisfied with the measures we have put in place."