HM Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland Annual Report to the Scottish Ministers 1 April 2025 – 31 March 2026

Dundee

Centre of Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID), University of Dundee

Principal Licensed Teacher: Dr Craig Cunningham

There are 9 licensed teachers - 6 academic, 3 technical.

Licensed Areas:

A premises licence was available for inspection as was a plan of the licensed areas within the department. Date of premises licence renewal – 7th August 2034.

Records/Paperwork:

Records and copies of all paperwork are kept in a fireproof cabinet and offsite on a remote server. All information is stored on a bespoke database which is updated as bodies/body parts are moved around the department.

CAHID receives all bodies for embalming which are then distributed to other licensed sites (see below) as required. All bodies are embalmed using the Thiel method; there are no frozen bodies on site.

Access to Licensed Areas:

Only certain licensed anatomy teaching staff and all CAHID technical staff have keys to the dissection room and know the code to turn off/reset the alarm.

Only certain licensed anatomy teaching staff and all CAHID technical staff have card access to the mortuary area.

Campus security has card access to the mortuary.

Emergency contact for CAHID is the technical manager (Tyler Halliwell).

Check of Records

An extensive check of the records against the number of cadavers in storage plus their location (the mortuary embalming tanks, the tank room racking, side room racking) found everything to be in order.

A random selection of retained parts and their location according to the database 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 be correct.

Codes of Practice/ Signed Agreements:

There are three different codes of practice which must be signed by:

all students before being allowed access to the dissecting room.

all those attending external courses.

all visitors before being allowed access, under escort, to licensed areas.

A random check of signed codes of practice found all to be in good order.

Bequest Information:

Bequest forms requested

382 (325)*

Bequest forms returned

180 (161)*

Bequests accepted

101 (89)*

Bequests unable to be accepted

44 (37)*

Bequests redirected

Aberdeen - 1, St Andrews - 3

Redirected bequests accepted

Edinburgh – 6, Glasgow – 1

*2024 – 2025 figures

Bodies Currently Held by CAHID and Their Location:

BSc/MSc Teaching

Medical/Dental Teaching (Dissecting Room)

46

Mortuary Embalming Tanks

52

Tank Room Racking

48

Side Room Racking

35

New Racking

35

Mortuary General

4

Dundee Institute for Healthcare Simulation Surgical Skills Centre (DIHS)

10*

Image Guided Therapy Research Facility (IGTRF)

4*

Total

234

* These bodies are off site.

Number of Intact Bodies in Storage i.e. undissected only

Embalmed (unallocated, unused) 128

Fresh/Frozen None

All bodies are Thiel embalmed; there are no fresh frozen cadavers or parts on site. All bodies are tagged in 6 places – ears, hands, feet. Whiteboards are marked up to correspond to body locations on racks.

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

1796 – 20 June 2026

University Courses Using Anatomy Facilities:

Medicine – years 1-3

Dentistry – years 1-4

BSc Anatomical Sciences – years 2-4

Forensic Art

Medical Art

BSc Forensic Anthropology

MSc Anatomy & Advanced Forensic Anthropology

MSc Forensic Archaeology & Anthropology

MSc Human Anatomy

BEng/Meng Biomedical Engineering

MSc Forensic Dentistry

MChOrth Orthopaedic Surgery

MSc Forensic Anthropology

MSc Orthopaedic Technology, Motion Analysis and Movement Rehabilitation

Oral Health Sciences

External Courses Using Anatomy Facilities:

17 courses made use of CAHID facilities, some on multiple days.

Dundee Institute For Healthcare Simulation Surgical Skills Centre (DIHS), Ninewells Hospital

There are 3 personal licence holders responsible for this area, 2 academic, 1 technical.

Licensed Areas:

Access to the skills centre is controlled by a buzzer system to reception, otherwise access is restricted to staff only.

There are 3 licensed areas, the Anatomy Lab, Wet Lab 1 and Wet Lab 2; Wet Lab 1 can be partitioned into two separate working areas. All of these areas are accessed by key entry; key holders for the Anatomy Lab are the Senior Technician and the Senior Technical Assistant only, whereas Wet Labs 1 and 2 can be accessed by all technical and centre staff.

Date of expiry of the premises licence is 3 April 2029.

Bodies Currently Held In DIHS:

There were 10 bodies in storage in DIHS at the time of the inspection.

All bodies/ body parts held in the Skills Centre are controlled by CAHID. The Skills Centre has the capacity to store 12 bodies. Bodies are usually stored at CAHID, and transported to the Skills Centre when needed, where they may be kept for short periods. All body movements between CAHID and the Skills Centre are tracked on the CAHID database.

A check of the records between those held by CAHID, those held by DIHS and the bodies in storage at DIHS were all found to be in order.

Courses Run At DIHS:

A list of some of the courses run in the Skills Centre is listed in the appendix.

Security:

Entrance to the Centre is restricted to Centre Staff, NHS Tayside Faculty and NHS Domestic Services.

The Anatomy Lab is only accessible by key which is locked in a secure key box in the technical staff office.

Wet Labs one and two also have key access which is restricted to Centre technical staff and key faculty staff. In the event of cadavers being left in a lab overnight, a partition wall is closed and all access points locked and secured.

The licensed room in the ENT area is accessible by key and by the two licensed ENT staff.

Each evening the Centre is locked down with a key to the main door and intruder alarm set.

In the event of an alarm being activated, the main hospital reception desk has a list of emergency contacts.

Image Guided Therapy Research Facility (IGTRF), Wilson House, Dundee

There are three personal licence holders responsible for this facility all technical staff.

At the time of the inspection there were 4 bodies on site. The number of these bodies were checked against the central data base held by CAHID and found to be correct.

Access to all licensed areas is by swipe card access and restricted to IGTRF staff only. Visitors are issued passes which restricts them to only those areas they require access to.

In the event of a breach of security, the University of Dundee security staff are notified directly.

A plan of the licensed area was available for inspection.

Date of expiry of the premises licence: 30 May 2034

A list of some of the courses run in IGTRF is listed in the appendix.

ENT Temporal Bone Lab, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee

There are two license holders responsible for this single licensed area.

Premises Licence Expiry Date – 10 December 2029

Access to the space is via an office which connects to a main outside corridor. All tissue used in the lab (temporal bones) is kept in a locked fridge when not being used. There is a security door between the office and the lab with the keys held by a licensed teacher.

All material held in the bone lab is under the control of CAHID and is recorded on their database. There is also a record of material retained in a box folder in the laboratory.

Hard Tissue Laboratory, School of Dentistry, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee

There is one licence holder responsible for this area.

Premises licence expiry date – 10 March 2032

Access to the lab is via a single door with key code access. Only PhD students requiring access to the lab and technical staff know the code. Outside normal working hours, access to the lab is restricted and requires authorisation from the Head of Anatomy. The corridor where the lab area is located, since the last inspection, is now secured with swipe card access.

At the time of the inspection, only one PhD student required access to the lab.

All material is stored in a locked metal cabinet. There are 2 keys for this cabinet one which is kept in the key safe in CAHID and the other in the Dental School. Keys are signed out and back in again.

There is a detailed spreadsheet that logs all stored material within the lab. Material moved from the lab to another location is logged using a specimen loan form. All material is returned to the lab at the end of the working day; no material is ever stored outside the lab overnight.

A random selection of teeth and their location according to the database 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 be correct.