Fuller Inquiry Phase 2 Report: Government Interim Update on Progress

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 75 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 54 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 and 75—covering standards, data and operating procedures in the wider health sector. Implementation highlights include: the publication by the Human Tissue Authority on 1 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— https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fuller-inquiry-government-interim-update-on-phase-2-recommendations.

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 to 9—for the NHS estate, and NHS England continues to assess the recommendations and is working with NHS trusts to develop actions at trust board level. A further 12 of the inquiry’s recommendations —10 to 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 to 56 relate to local authority mortuaries, which include 21 HTA licensed mortuaries. MHCLG sought views via the Local Government Association 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 concludes that seven are fully covered by existing HTA standards, and has shared this analysis with the LGA.