The British government yesterday cleared the way for health trusts to inform families whether the organs of their dead children and relatives were removed without their consent.
More than 100 National Health Service (NHS) trusts across England will begin writing to families next week, after a ban was lifted on disclosing the information following an inquiry earlier this year into organ retention at the Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool.
During the inquiry it also emerged that more than 100,000 hearts, lungs and other organs were still being held by hospitals around Britain. The findings sparked panic as people jammed hospital switchboards, trying to discover whether relatives who had died, sometimes decades ago, were among those whose organs had been retained.
Prof Margaret Brazier, chairwoman of the Retained Organs Commission, established to oversee the release of information, said details of organs retained by the hospitals would be released from next week. She predicted that some families would discover that no organs had been removed.
"Others will at least see an end to their uncertainty and now have the opportunity to discuss with the hospitals what should be done," she said. "The delay in issuing information has been very distressing for some people but it was important that we put systems in place to avoid inaccurate information causing even greater distress."
Parents whose children were treated at teaching hospitals may have to wait several weeks for information due to the volume of requests, she said.
In his audit of organ retention across England and Wales, the Chief Medical Officer, Prof Liam Donaldson, discovered hospitals and medical training colleges were storing more than 100,000 organs.