HM Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland: annual report 2023-2024

Aberdeen

5. Head of Anatomy: Professor Simon Parson, Regius Professor of Anatomy, University of Aberdeen.

6. There are four licensed teachers – 2 academic, 2 technical.

Licensed Areas:

7. No change since previous inspection. Premises license renewal date – 17 May 2028.

Access To Licensed Areas:

8. Access through all internal doors is by swipe card; access to teaching space is unlocked when in use but locked at all other times.

9. University security is alerted by alarm system if there is a safety breach who then alert keyholders whether within or out with working hours.

Record Keeping:

10. Register of bodies in storage and where stored: there is a digital excel spreadsheet on a shared drive which only technicians/ licensed teachers/ bequest administrator have access to. There is also a record in book form of parts removed from any one cadaver and where these are located.

11. Record of retained parts and where stored: on a shared drive/file which only technicians have access too. There is also a record in book form of each retained part and the cadaver from which it was taken.

Storage of records:

12. All records are kept locally in a fireproof cabinet as well as offsite on a server. Only licensed teachers, technical staff and the bequest administrator have access to the records.

13. A new electronic record keeping system is still being developed with all data currently held paper copies being gradually transferred onto this system.

14. The system as it is at present was reviewed and found to be a significant improvement on what was used in the past.

Check Of Records:

15. Action Point from the 2022-2023 Report: “that the technical staff take more care with the identification and location of whole intact bodies and that the wall plan in the storage area is accurate and up-to-date”.

16. A check of the records against the number of cadavers in storage plus their location according to the wall plan found everything to be in perfect order, a significant improvement on the situation to what was reported at the last inspection.

17. A random selection of retained parts and their location according to the Record of Retained Parts was checked and found to be correct. A reverse check of retained parts and their location was then made against their recorded location in the Record of Retained Parts which was again found to be correct.

Code Of Practice/ Signed Agreements:

18. A signed Code of Practice is required before access is granted to a licensed area. The same Code of Practice is given to everyone whether they be students or surgeons. Additionally all students are given a talk and receive a booklet at the start of the year about their responsibilities and behaviour when working with cadavers. These activities were carried out online with extra emphasis on the imaging code of conduct. Students sign the Code of Practice electronically which are then saved securely to allow monitoring.

19. Signed Codes of Practice were made available for inspection.

Bequest Information:

• Bequest forms requested: 140 (125*)
• Bequest forms returned: 85 (91*)
• Bequests accepted: 43 (36*)
• Bequests rejected: 20 (19*)
• Bequests redirected: Dundee - 1
• Redirected bequests accepted: Dundee - 2, Edinburgh - 2

*2022–2023 figures

20. No defined limits on body size for rejection of a bequest. The university will accept a BMI > 30 due to requirements from clinicians for bodies to reflect all sizes in the population.

Bodies Currently Held In Licensed Areas:

• Un-dissected embalmed: 16
• Dissected embalmed: 43
• Undissected fresh/ frozen: 8
• Dissected frozen: 6
• Total: 73
• Number of oldest body in storage and date by which it must be disposed: 2655 – 22 August 2024

University Courses Using Anatomy Facilities:

• Medicine
• Dentistry
• Sports Science
• Archaeology
• BSc Courses Medical Humanities
• G2M (Gateway to Medicine)

External Courses Using Anatomy Facilities (see Appendix for a summary):

21. Twelve external courses were run using anatomy facilities.

22. Anyone requesting to run a course must complete a course proposal form for consideration by Head of Anatomy.

23. The majority of external courses are carried out in the Suttie Centre although there is an increasing demand for bodies to be relocated to other clinical spaces in the Foresterhill Hospital or other University of Aberdeen campus sites. At all times, bodies/material are either accompanied by a licensed teacher or the licensed teacher is on site (Suttie Centre) and remains contactable by phone for the time that the material is outside the licensed area. All material is returned to the Suttie Centre on the day of use i.e. no bodies/material are ever stored off site.

24. There is a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) with the NHS for the transport of material to and from the Suttie Centre and its use for research. SOPs are also in place for transport to pre-clinical (research) scanning sites at Foresterhill and Old Aberdeen campuses.