It is a Cinderella service that nobody wants

Ken Scott, chair of Clinical Pathology Accreditation (UK)

The Clinical Pathology Accreditation (UK) team has now withdrawn its four-year accreditation for histopathology at the hospital, this includes the mortuary and post-mortem facilities.

But there are warnings that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

A study uncovered by the Health Service Journal has revealed that the problem is much more wide spread.

Ken Scott, the chair of Clinical Pathology Accreditation (CPA), has said that up to half the 300 mortuaries visited by inspectors were not good enough.

Cinderella department

He said the service had suffered from chronic underfunding and lack of care for years and was a "Cinderella" department of the NHS.

He said the lack of investment was leading to a gradual deterioration of services, which often went unnoticed.

"They tend to be in fairly old bits of the hospital that tend to get left by management and nobody tends to look at them until something happens like happened over the last fortnight.

"It is a Cinderella service that nobody wants," he said.

Earlier this month it was revealed that the Bedford Hospitals NHS Trust stored dead bodies on the floor of an unrefrigerated chapel.

Following the revelations, every chief executive throughout the country was ordered to inspect the hospital's mortuary and make sure facilities were up to date, said Mr Scott.

He said that Bedford had lost its accreditation following a meeting last November when it was revealed that despite the best efforts of staff the service was sub standard.

A hospital spokeswoman for Bedford Hospitals said the loss of accreditation would not affect the mortuary services at the hospital, but added that they would be acting on all the recommendations made in the CPA report.