Three years after the Alder Hey and Yorkhill scandals, the law has not been changed to prevent doctors removing organs without written permission.

But doctors insist practices have changed and they act within strict guidelines to ensure parents are fully informed.

The parent's group Justice for the Innocents said there has been no change in the law, no public inquiry and no police investigation into its complaints.

Bereaved relatives remain concerned

There was controversy over the retention of children's organs by some Scottish hospitals without the consent of parents.

At Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool thousands of organs were taken from children's bodies, again without the consent or knowledge of parents.

Justice for the Innocents said guidelines are not good enough and that post mortems should be filmed to prove pathologists are only taking organs with permission.

However, both Scotland's Royal College of Surgeons and British Medical Association (BMA) have rejected the film proposal as unnecessary, impractical and expensive.

They said doctors were working within strict guidelines and parents were being kept fully informed of every organ retention.

Law change

An independent review group, led by Professor Sheila McLean, proposed a far-reaching shake-up of the existing legislation, which dates back 40 years.

Prof McLean, an ethics expert at Glasgow University, was asked to report on the matter by the then Health Minister Susan Deacon.

The review group's report, Organ Retention at Post-Mortem, called for a range of legal controls to be introduced to regulate what happens to a child's body after death.

The Scottish Executive said it is committed to changing the law - which would mean changing the 1961 Tissues Act - but wants a consistent UK approach.