HTA and Anatomy sector stakeholder forum

In November, we welcomed some very experienced anatomists to our Anatomy sector stakeholder engagement forum. I think it’s fair to say we got right into discussions from the outset.

One topic we discussed at some length was HTA’s role in body donation. The Human Tissue Authority (HTA) does not coordinate, collect, or receive bodies or other human materials, but we license and inspect the organisations that do.

For many years, our website has hosted body donation information on behalf of establishments. We provide this to help potential donors make contact with a suitable medical school in their area. We do not coordinate body donations on behalf of establishments or allocate their body donation postcodes, which are subject to local arrangements.

If establishments need to communicate a change in the services they provide to donors, we can update this on our website, for example the pausing or stopping of the receipt of body donations or changes to body donation postcodes.

As one anatomy facility has recently stopped accepting body donations, we discussed whether this is likely to be a trend. The view was that body donations will continue to be a valuable resource for education and training; however, there was also recognition that a range of resources can be used to teach human anatomy, such as books, models, images, 3D printed models, and now, virtual reality learning.

There was welcome recognition that we are succeeding in sharing more Anatomy sector content in our stakeholder newsletters, including professional reflections on good practices and to reinforce existing guidance. Underscoring this, we had a range of Anatomy sector professional reflections in our December newsletter:

• Electronic versus conventional signatures on body donation consent forms
• Sending confidential or sensitive material to the HTA
• Maintaining the condition of stored bodies and body parts
• Website information for potential body donors, including postcode information.

I also gave an update on our Anatomy sector inspections. We’re on target to complete 12 anatomy sector inspections for this business year, which is about one quarter of the sector in one year - our highest annual number. We’re operating a different model now, with a single inspector and a hybrid approach (virtual and site visit components). This has been working well.

Inspection and compliance data over the years has confirmed that our Anatomy establishments are highly compliant with our regulation - there have been no critical shortfalls and, where shortfalls occur, they are almost always minor.

The commonest standard with a minor shortfall identified against it was GQ6(a), which exists to ensure that staff at licensed establishments have assessed and documented the risks that apply to the work carried out under their licensing arrangements. This tells us we may need to give further pointers to the sector on this area of compliance.

We thanked our Anatomy sector colleagues for sharing their views and latest updates from the sector. It was great to hear that these meetings are valued and that stakeholders welcome the opportunity to engage with us outside of regulatory interactions.

We look forward to meeting with them again in around 6 months’ time.

Christopher Birkett, Head of Regulation

Further information on the Anatomy sector:

For body donation, find your local medical school on our website.

See our inspection reports on the Anatomy sector.

To sign up for our newsletter, visit the homepage of our website and scroll to the end of the page.