By Rept0n1x - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link (Image: Alder Hay Children's Hospital, Liverpool).

Between 1988 and 1995, pathologist Dr. Dick van Velzen systematically removed and retained thousands of organs from deceased children at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool—often without any consent from families. The scandal, exposed in 1999 and formally investigated by Michael Redfern, QC in the 2001 Redfern Report, revealed over 2,000 preserved organs, including hearts and brains, many of which had been taken without medical necessity or ethical oversight. Van Velzen falsified records, failed to conduct meaningful research, and destroyed documentation to conceal his actions. The coroner, hospital management, and the university affiliated with Dr. Velzen were included in the report due to their mismanagement and lack of care for the children and their bereaved family members. Every person responsible for oversight, which exists to prevent something this horrific, failed in their positions at the children’s hospital to protect the ethical boundaries of medicine, the children, and their families. The Redfern report notes the guilty parties' paternalistic and fragrant response to outrage from parents and the public. Though he was removed from the UK medical register in 2005, he was never criminally prosecuted. The scandal triggered the passing of the Human Tissue Act of 2004, this was a reformed version of the Human Tissue Act of 1961, which was unclear and outdated (Dr. Velzen completely ignored the parameters already written into law), established in detail: informed consent as a legal requirement for the removal, storage, and use of human tissue in the UK. 

The Alder Hay scandal uncovers the same sterile, utilitarian logic in Never Let Me Go; the idea that bodies—especially those of vulnerable people (especially children, in these cases)—can be used without consideration for their humanity in the name of medicine or science.

Just as the Hailsham students are reduced to “donors,” the children at Alder Hey were treated not as individual children, but as repositories of biological material, solely for medical advancement. Both the novel and the scandal expose the consequences of institutional detachment, where ethics are buried, or ignored beneath procedure, and lives are quietly dismantled in service of others. Although the Morningdale scandal from the novel was most likely not inspired by the Alder Hey scandal, it is difficult not to see the similarities: a talented scientist seeks a secluded environment to experiment on children for medical advancement, "far beyond legal boundaries," as Miss Emily notes on page 264. However, Dr. Velzen’s intentions weren’t as clear as trying to create a superior race of children. I believe this real life scientific horror would have certainly influenced the novel. Just as in Never Let Me Go, the children (or “students”) were only as valuable as their disembodied parts. The horrific events that took place at Alder Hay are further evidence that Ishiguro’s world is not simply speculative, but it reflects how real systems have failed to protect the sanctity of humanity and how bureaucratic institutions do not holistically care about what makes us human, and reduce individual autonomy to a roadblock in their progress. 

Redfern, Michael. The Royal Liverpool Children’s Inquiry Report. Department of Health, 2001. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a74a0b5e5274a410efd121e/0012_ii.pdf

Bauchner, Howard, and Robert Vinci. “What Have We Learnt from the Alder Hey Affair?” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 322, no. 7281, 10 Feb. 2001, pp. 309–310. National Center for Biotechnology Information, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119560/.

“Alder Hey Pathologist ‘Stockpiled Children’s Organs’.” The Guardian, 6 June 2005. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/06/alderhey 

Kennedy, Ian. “Learning from Bristol: The Report of the Public Inquiry into Children’s Heart Surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary 1984–1995.” The Lancet, vol. 364, no. 9431, 6 Nov. 2004, pp. 1920–1922. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(04)17637-X/fulltext.