Public display

The more things change, the more they remain the same

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Our Chief Executive Allan Marriott-Smith takes a look back over the last decade of the HTA.

I’m sure I’m not alone in the thinking that coming to the end of another decade has relatively few highlights. I can say for certain that in January 2020 I’m older, greyer and wrinklier than in 2010, and my knees have seen better days.

Organ donation: Lessons from Wales

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On December 1 2015, Wales became the first country in the UK to implement a ‘soft opt-out’ system for organ donation. Earlier this year we learnt that this has significantly increased consent rates for deceased donation when compared with England. At the time of the law change consent rates in Wales were the lowest in the UK (less than 50%). Now they are the highest by some distance (77% compared with 67% for the rest of the UK).

Sale of bodies, body parts and tissue policy

The HTA regulates organisations that remove, store and use human tissue for research, patient treatment, post-mortem examination, anatomical examination, surgical training and display in public. These activities require appropriate consent to be in place in order for them to lawfully take place, and a number of them are also licensable. Our code of practice on consent gives guidance on how to comply with the consent requirements of the Human Tissue Act 2004.