Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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1727. To ask the Minister for Health the steps that he is taking to ensure that there are clear and compulsory communication channels between the HSE and families concerning postmortems, especially in perinatal cases. [2431/23]

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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1728. To ask the Minister for Health the steps that he is taking to ensure that no human organs or tissue are retained during or after postmortems without the expressed permission of the deceased person’s next-of-kin. [2432/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1727 and 1728 together.

The Minister and the Department of Health recognise the need to introduce safeguards to protect the integrity of the human body before and after death. The Human Tissue (Transplant, Post-Mortem, Anatomical Examination and Public Display) Bill secured Cabinet approval for publication on the 29th November 2022, and has since been published on the Oireachtas website. The Bill is due to be presented for Second Stage debate later this month.

This Bill is a composite piece of legislation that will introduce a statutory framework across the areas of organ donation and transplantation, post-mortem practice and procedures in hospital settings, anatomical examination and public display of bodies after death.

The overarching aim of the Bill is to further embed in legislation the idea that consent is the defining principle across all these sensitive matters. It implements recommendations of the Madden Report and establishes a new regulatory regime to ensure best practice is followed in the conduct of post-mortem examinations.

The Human Tissue Bill introduces consent provisions for non-coronial post-mortems and sets out a clear framework for how consent should be obtained and the information that must be given to families when seeking such consent. The Bill also introduces regulations for the retention, storage, use, disposal and return of organs and tissue from deceased persons following a post-mortem examination.

Recognising the need to enhance provisions to encompass all post-mortems that are conducted in hospital settings, the Bill will amend the Coroners Acts 1962-2020 to address issues with regard to material removed and retained from a deceased person in a post-mortem examination directed by a coroner.

It is important to note that the Corners Acts 1962-2020 remain as the primary legislation governing post-mortem examinations directed by the coroner. Where a coroner has instructed that a post-mortem should take place, consent from the next of kin is not required because there is a legal requirement on the coroner to investigate certain types of deaths.

The HSE is committed to ensuring postmortem services comply with best practice across all hospitals and has undertaken a programme of work to progress the eight recommendations identified in an audit report on the post-mortem process published earlier this year.

Actions taken so far include:

- The Chief Clinical Officer has established a Post-Mortem Examination Services Group to review and update the 2012 Standards. This Group is due to complete its work shortly;

- The National Women and Infants Health Programme (NWIHP) has accelerated a review of the provision of perinatal pathology, and the HSE is currently developing a National Perinatal Pathology Practice Framework Document to support services;

- The HSE is continuing to invest in perinatal pathology services with the aim of ensuring that all hospitals will have access to a regional service either as part of their Hospital Group or a network of Hospital Groups; and

- HSE National Acute Operations has engaged with local hospital management to ensure that existing guidelines are followed.

Overall, the legislation along with the measures being undertaken by the HSE will lead to improved standards of practice across both the coronial and non-coronial system and will complement updated guidelines currently being drafted by the HSE which are scheduled for publication shortly.