UKPDSTB General: Brain Bank Bulletin issue 7, page 3

Page 3 of 4 Brain Bank Bulletin
The PDS Tissue Bank is sponsored by the Parkinson's Disease Society Issue 7
Winter 2006

Inside this issue:

The PINE Study 1 Tissue Requests and Research 1 Local Hospitals and Tissue Retrieval 2 The Human Tissue Act 2004 3

Updated Figures 3 Future Branch Talks and Notices 4 Contact Information 4 Our Team 4

Human Tissue Act 2004

The Human Tissue Act 2004 came into effect on the 1st September 2006. The government said that the current consent laws were confusing and needed to be updated. The Act makes clear that where an adult has, whilst alive and competent, consented to donating tissue after their death then that consent is sufficient for the activity to be lawful.
If the family or those close to the deceased person object to the donation, for whatever purpose, when the deceased person (or their nominated representative) has explicitly consented, clinicians should seek to discuss the matter sensitively with them. They should be encouraged to accept the deceased person's wishes and it should be made clear that they do not have the legal right to veto or overrule those wishes. There may nevertheless be cases in which donation is inappropriate and each case should be considered individually.

Where the deceased person has not signed the Tissue Bank Consent Form, and a nominated representative has not been appointed, someone close to them can give consent to the donation of tissue. The Act ranks persons in a qualifying relationship for the purposes of obtaining consent in these circumstances in the following order (highest first):

spouse or partner (including civil or same sex partner)
parent or child
brother or sister
grandparent or grandchild
niece or nephew
stepfather or stepmother
half-brother or half-sister
friend of long standing

The ranking is intended to help those seeking consent to know who to approach and in what order. Consent should be obtained from the person ranked highest.
The above section was amended from The Human Tissue Authority - Code of Practice - Donation of Organs, Tissue and Cells for transplantation (Code 2 July 2006)
The Tissue Bank has always asked for both signatures of the person wishing to donate and their nominated representative (Next of Kin). We will continue to do, because we like to have the full co-operation of the family. If you have any questions regarding this, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Update on Figures

As can be seen from the graph, the Tissue Bank is now rapidly approaching 1000 registered prospective donors. In addition, we have now collected well over 150 brains. The Tissue Bank has also seen an increase in the number of control donors registering with us, with over 40% of those currently registered being prospective control donors. We thank you all for your support.