Doctors' arrogance blamed for retention of childrens' organs

Doctors'“arrogance born of indifference” was to blame for hospitals routinely retaining dead children's organs for years without obtaining parents' consent, declared Ian Kennedy, chairman of the inquiry into children's heart surgery at Bristol, in a hard hitting interim report last week.

Professor Kennedy recommended either an enforceable code of practice or, preferably, a new law to tighten up the regime on consent. A code of practice would be incorporated in clinicians' employment contract, and breaches of it could lead to disciplinary sanctions.

His preference was to give a code statutory force, by incorporating it in a schedule to an act of parliament or by stipulating …