Bristol inquiry into baby deaths to move into new phase

The inquiry into children's heart surgery services at Bristol will move into a new phase in the new year, looking at the wider issues that the saga has thrown up for the health service as a whole, such as the determinants of performance and professional and managerial culture.

Just before the inquiry adjourned for Christmas, the chairman, Professor Ian Kennedy, announced that his panel would produce a special report on the issue of retention of organs after postmortem examination, at the request of the chief medical officer for England, Professor Liam Donaldson.

The revelation that for years doctors at Bristol Royal Infirmary and other British hospitals had been retaining children's organs without their parents' knowledge provoked …