HM Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland: annual report 2021 to 2022

General Points

Statistics Summary (as at 31^st March 2021 - these are cumulative figures for all anatomy departments)

• Bequest Forms requested: 1792
• Bequest Forms returned: 1150
• Bodies accepted: 279
• Bodies rejected: 209
• Bodies redirected to another department: 31
• Number of embalmed bodies currently held: 280
• Number of frozen bodies in storage: 109
• Number of Licensed Teachers, Academic: 22
• Number of Licensed Teachers, Technical: 5

The Effect of COVID-19 on the Body Donor Programme

91. Due to the potential risk of receiving COVID-19 infected bodies all anatomy departments suspended the body donor programme until the end of 2020 when the situation was reviewed. Since then all departments restarted their donor programmes, all at different times depending on local circumstances. At the time of the end of the reporting period (31^st March 2022) all departments had sufficient bodies to meet their needs.

92. This has obvious implications on the delivery of anatomy teaching both at an undergraduate and postgraduate level. Anatomy departments have adopted a method of blended learning using a combination of online teaching with a considerably reduced amount of socially distanced, face-to-face teaching.

93. Difficult as the situation is for the delivery of undergraduate teaching, it is even more difficult for the delivery of postgraduate surgical training courses using cadavers which has almost ceased in some cases. The Colleges of Surgeons of the UK and Ireland are jointly looking at a way of addressing this problem.

Memorial Services

94. Face-to-face memorial services were replaced with online services due to COVID-19 restrictions all of which I attended.

Code of Practice

95. The final revised version of the Code of Practice was put on hold again due to the COVID-19 situation.

Other Activities

96. These include:

• reviewing licence applications, both personal and premises, before issuing them. In the case of the latter, it invariably means visiting the premises in question to make sure that it conforms to the requirements of the Act and the Code of Practice.
• responding on a day-to-day basis to email and telephone enquiries both from licensed teachers and members of the public on a wide and varied range of anatomically related topics.