Inquiry as body parts kept in two hospitals

An independent inquiry was ordered yesterday into serious allegations and concerns over complaints from parents about storage of organs taken from dead children at two Manchester hospitals. The Royal Manchester Children's Hospital and St Mary's Hospital will be investigated by a team from the Retained Organs Commission, said the Health minister, Hazel Blears. The investigation is the first to be established since the public inquiry into retained organs at Liverpool's Alder Hey hospital last year.

St Mary's hospital said it had received 330 calls from families following the Alder Hey inquiry report and there was one case "outstanding". The Children's Hospital received 390 inquiries of which "all but a handful" had been resolved.

Nationally, more than 100,000 hearts, lungs and other organs were retained by hundreds of hospitals, often without permission, following the Alder Hey scandal. Staff were ordered to search laboratories, cupboards and storerooms to identify tissue samples and body parts.

In May, the first of 100 NHS trusts were given permission to contact parents and relatives with information about retained tissue and organs. The Retained Organs Commission was set up to oversee the process of identifying body parts and returning them to parents who requested them. More than 500 families have begun legal action for compensation against Alder Hey and other hospitals and the final payout could be in excess of £20m.