A HEALTH trust has issued an assurance that organs are never taken from dead children for research without parents' permission. This follows the scandal at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, concerning the removal of organs from children without consent.

A spokeswoman for the Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust said the trust complied with the Human Tissue Act, which governs such actions. "I have spoken to our consultant pathologists and we do not keep organs. That has always been our policy. We might take a small amount of tissue but we would not take the whole organ," she said.

The controversy surrounding the practice of removing organs from children centres on post mortem examinations involving 850 youngsters who died at Alder Hey. Parents of the children involved have said they did not give consent for the procedure.

Since the news broke a top-level inquiry into the practice has been launched. Langho couple Jim and Julie Wright, are among those affected by the scandal at Alder Hey. Their son, William, died aged 11-and-a-half weeks at the hospital in 1993. His parents say they did not know his entire organ system had been removed.

They are now planning a second funeral to bury William's organs alongside his body in Osbaldeston.

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