York health chiefs today confirmed they had stored patients' organs and apologised if the practice had caused any distress.

They revealed that a team had been set up to respond to bereaved relatives in the wake of the Alder Hey scandal.

A special phone line is being provided by the York Health Trust following the publication of a damning report into stored organs taken from child patients at the Liverpool hospital.

Chief medical officer Prof Liam Donaldson has revealed that more than 100,000 organs are retained by NHS trusts and medical schools in England. His census shows the York trust holds 62 organs - one from a child, which was retained for further tests on the cause of death. The Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust has 1,500 organs and Newcastle Hospitals 2,700.

York and Leeds trusts have apologised for any distress caused by the retention of organs.

The Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare Trust and the Harrogate Healthcare Trust removed organs during post-mortems, but did not retain any.

The chief executive of the York trust, Simon Pleydell, said: "This trust carries out post-mortems in order to confirm and fully investigate the cause of death and underlying diseases. In some cases organs will have been removed and retained for further study.

"Although in past years normal procedures did not involve providing information to relatives about this process, I accept that this is no longer appropriate. In future we will be more open and will explain more about what is happening.

"We appreciate that relatives of those who have sadly died or had post-mortems carried out within our services may be concerned about the possibility of organs having been retained. I and my colleagues in York are deeply sorry for any distress which this may have caused."

Of the organs retained at York, 57 were subject to post-mortems ordered by a coroner. The majority had been retained on behalf of relatives as potential evidence in industrial compensation cases.

The trust is producing new, more detailed, consent forms with an information booklet.

* York trust information line: 01904-454424 ( 9am to 6pm weekdays), though the team will respond to messages left at other times. Leeds help desk: 0113-206-6669 (until 10pm tonight, then 9am to 5pm). Scarborough: 0800-374077 (9am to 6pm weekdays). Harrogate: 01423-880636 (9am to 8pm until Friday, then 10am to 2pm, Saturday and Sunday).

Updated: 11:13 Wednesday, January 31, 2001