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 here.

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.

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