8. What legal advice has the Counsel General provided to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care regarding the implications of the Human Tissue Act 2004 on the way bodies are kept in hospital mortuaries? OQ61318

Thank you for your question. The Human Tissue Act 2004 established the Human Tissue Authority to regulate activities concerning the removal, storage, use and disposal of human tissue. NHS hospital mortuaries that undertake licensable activity, such as postmortem, will be licensed and subject to inspection by the authority.

Thank you very much for that. You'll be aware of the issues that arose a few months ago where, in the Grange hospital, the wrong bodies were delivered to families for burial. I'd be grateful to understand whether a legal assessment has been made by the Welsh Government about that issue, firstly.

There have also been deeply distressing questions that have been asked of that hospital relating to photographs that were taken of dying people and the bodies of people who had died during the COVID pandemic. Relatives of those who lost their lives during COVID have raised concerns with me about how those photographs were taken when their relatives couldn't possibly have given their consent. Those people were under the care of the NHS, surely they would have had the right to privacy by law under the Human Rights Act 1998, which sets out the rights to control how information about your private life is shared, including photographs that have been taken secretly.

So, what discussions have you had, please, or will you have with the Human Tissue Authority and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care about those issues that have arisen at the Grange hospital?

Thank you for raising those important and I think very distressing—particularly distressing for the families involved in those incidents. We can understand absolutely the distress that they have suffered as a result of that. And of course, again, there have been a number of incidents that are related in England as well—as you know, there has been the Fuller inquiry—as well as the issues that occurred within the Grange.

So, we do take the standard of NHS mortuary care and the dignity of the deceased extremely seriously. We do expect NHS health boards to comply with the requirements of the law, to meet Human Tissue Authority standards, and to be open and honest when mistakes are made. Welsh Government officials are in routine contact with the Human Tissue Authority, an England and Wales special health authority, and of course we do appoint a representative to that. Where necessary, officials are working in order to ensure that those assurances on security and standards of mortuary care are fully complied with.

Can I say also that the health board is undertaking an investigation that will be reviewed by the NHS Wales Executive, and any required actions or learning for the rest of Wales is already intended to be identified and to be shared with other NHS organisations?

I thank the Counsel General.