Minister for Health Innovation and Safety (Dr ): I am today updating the
House on the Government's progress in responding to the
recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into the serious
issues raised by the appalling actions of David Fuller, including
an accompanying interim update published alongside this
statement.
The final report of the Fuller Inquiry, published on 15 July
2025, set out seventy-five recommendations to strengthen the
security and dignity of people after death across a wide range of
settings. The Inquiry's findings were clear: current arrangements
for the care of the deceased are partial, piecemeal, and not
universally mandated. A dedicated cross-Government Programme
Board was established in July and has met fortnightly since.
At this interim stage solid progress has been made on fifty-four
of the Inquiry recommendations.
Eleven are accepted in full and work is already in progress to
implement these recommendations (22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30,31, 32,
33, 34 & 75) covering standards, data and operating
procedures in the wider health sector. Implementation highlights
include: the publication by the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) on
1st December of updated guidance to ensure adverse
incidents in the anatomy sector are recorded (recommendation 26)
with incidents already being reported; agreement by NHS England
that data collection on the conveyancing of deceased patients
will be rolled out in 2026/27 for the first time (recommendation
31). Further details are included in the interim update
publication [DN: add link to GOV.UK publication].
Forty-three of the Inquiry's recommendations relating to both NHS
and Local Authority mortuaries require further work before they
can be implemented. Those include nine recommendations (1-9) for
the NHS estate, and NHS England continue to assess the
recommendations and are working with NHS Trusts to develop
actions at Trust Board level. A further twelve of the Inquiry's
recommendations (10-21) relate to governance, accountability and
safeguarding in NHS Trusts. Analysis of the logistics and
costings of these recommendations is currently being carried out
by NHS England. Recommendations 35-56 relate to Local Authority
Mortuaries, which include twenty-one HTA licensed mortuaries.
MHCLG sought views via the Local Government Association (LGA) on
the state of the estate, and there is an LGA led roundtable
meeting in January. The LGA and HTA are also working together to
assess how LA mortuaries current practices compare with the
Inquiry's recommendations, and existing HTA standards in the
Post-Mortem sector. The HTA has reviewed these recommendations
against their own standards and conclude that seven are fully
covered by existing HTA standards, and has shared this analysis
with the LGA.
There are a further twenty-one recommendations still under
consideration. Seven of these are miscellaneous recommendations
(24,25,67,68,69,70&73), and three are for LAs who contract
with third party providers (57,58 & 59). A roundtable was
held in November regarding the role of faith organisations (67
and 68) in the care for the deceased in these settings. Outputs
of the roundtable will inform the response to these two
recommendations. In addition, the Chief Coroner has notified all
coroners of the inquiry's conclusions, in response to
recommendation 70.
No decisions have been made regarding the eleven Recommendations
(29,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,69,71,72) relating to wider regulation
in all settings that care for people after death. We are working
closely with the NHS, Local Authorities, the Human Tissue
Authority, the Care Quality Commission, and other partners to
explore how we can ensure that robust and consistent standards
are in place across all settings. This includes reviewing
mortuary access controls, oversight arrangements, contractor
vetting, and requirements for training and reporting.
The Government is committed to transparency and accountability as
this work progresses. This update demonstrates that work is
actively underway to consider and respond to the Inquiry's
recommendations, with action already being taken towards
implementing fifty-four of seventy-five recommendations. Full
details of the status of all recommendations are contained in the
published update. A full response to the Inquiry's
recommendations will be published in Summer 2026.
