Top trusts failed mortuary security checks

Some of England’s most prestigious trusts have been caught with inadequate security for their mortuaries — despite recent high-profile breaches, HSJ can reveal.

In a national exercise last August and September, the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) found 37 out of 128 mortuaries checked were non-compliant with its licensing standards, while a further 64 had to be issued with advice in order to meet them. Only 27 were declared compliant.

Mortuary security shot up the agenda when maintenance supervisor David Fuller was jailed for violating the bodies of more than 100 women and girls in hospital mortuaries for more than a decade.

An inquiry set up to look into how he was able to carry out the assaults was highly critical of access controls at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust, where he worked, and is due to report later this year on the security of mortuaries and funeral directors nationally.

Meanwhile, the HTA, which licenses premises for post-mortems and similar uses, stepped up its focus on mortuary standards last year with a series of unannounced inspections, due to the severity of shortfalls it was finding.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 20 February 2025