Health campaigners have criticised the NHS after a worker kept his job despite taking a van to a garage with a dead body in the back.
Workers at AM Phillip in Aberdeen were horrified when they discovered the body while attempting to fix a tail-light on the vehicle last month.
The body was due to be taken to the city’s Foresterhill Mortuary, but ended up at the garage inside that van that needed serviced.
One member of staff involved in the incident was suspended for the blunder, but after an internal investigation he has returned back to his role at NHS Grampian.
A spokeswoman for NHS Grampian said: “We have completed our investigation into this incident and it has highlighted a failure to communicate between porters at a handover during a change of shifts.
“A series of actions have already been taken to ensure such an incident cannot happen again. These include training for staff and revised work instructions on handover procedures and record keeping.
“The suspended member of staff has returned to work. We are satisfied they can resume their duties on completing the training in the revised procedures.”
But Dr Jean Turner, executive director of the Scotland Patients Association, said the action was not severe enough.
She said: “It’s good that he’s getting further training, but for me, he’s obviously not fit to look after people that are dead. I think he’s due a move sideways to something else and someone else more responsible can take over his role.
“To leave somebody’s relatives in the back of a van while it’s in the garage – that’s just not acceptable. It just seemed to be so unbelievable at the time and it’s unimaginable how frightening that would be for the people that found the body and very unpleasant for the family knowing that their family member has been treated so disrespectfully. I think it’s disgusting that should have happened.”
Dr Turner said that unless communication procedures improve at NHS Grampian more blunders would follow in the future.
She said: “Lack of communication is the most common factor that causes problems and I have to say if you can’t even look after dead bodies it doesn’t bode well for those people that are alive and in their care.
“If they’re just dismissing it as ‘one of those things’, then that’s not good enough. I think Grampian need to learn a lot of lessons from this one incident about how to improve communications.
“I’ve never heard of a body going missing before, but that’s what can happen with a break down of communications.”
NHS Grampian contacted the deceased’s family at the time to apologise and also issued an apology to the staff at A.M. Phillip.
