HM Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland: annual report 2024-2025

Glasgow

Head of Anatomy: Professor Scott Border.

There are currently 4 personal licence holders 2 academic, 2 technical.

Licensed Areas:

No change since previous inspection.

Premises Licence expiry date: 12^th October 2033

The premises licence plus a map of the licensed area were available for inspection.

Access To Licensed Areas:

All licensed areas are protected by intruder alarms.

Six technical staff plus one laboratory assistant and two academic staff have swipe card access to all licensed areas. Swipe card access is controlled by the Chief Technician.

On the map of licensed areas, those areas regarded as 'high risk' can only be accessed by licensed teachers plus appropriate technical staff, the prosection store by all teaching staff and appropriate technical staff and the teaching labs by all teaching staff.

Students have free access to the corridor leading to the teaching labs plus to the museum. Development of a means of restricting public access to the museum is ongoing. As a result of students inadvertently gaining access to licensed space, this is now being pursued with greater urgency.

Out of Hour access: Security has access to all areas but would only enter these areas in the event of an emergency, and then, only after advising the Chief Technician.

Record Keeping/Signed Agreements:

Full records and electronic copies of documentation are stored on a bespoke password protected web-based bequest database. Electronic copies of correspondence and initial information are stored on Microsoft Teams. Original hard copies of declaration of bequest forms on the donor register are stored in fireproof cabinets. An archive of hard copies of donor records are also stored in fireproof cabinets. Active files are temporarily held in the Anatomy Office.

There is in place a printed and bound standard operating procedure for the handling of cadavers from the receipt of a body into the department until its final disposal by cremation.

Check of Records

A check of the records against the number of cadavers in storage plus their location found everything to be in order.

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 correct.

Code of Conduct:

A copy of ‘Rules and Regulations’ is given out in advance to all those attending courses using cadaver material. This must be signed and returned before access to the teaching lab is granted. These forms are then scanned and saved on a database. These were made available for the inspection.

*2023 – 2024 figures

Number of oldest body in storage and date by which it must be disposed

22/23 - 27, 22 January 2026

Courses Run Using Cadaver Material:

There are currently 18 internal and 36 external courses using anatomy facilities, the latter running collaboratively in the Clinical Anatomy Skills Centre (CASC) between the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the University of Glasgow. A comprehensive list of all these courses was available for inspection – see the appendix.