Families involved in the Alder Hey case received around �5,000 each

BBC News Online examines the background to this case.

What is happening?

The families of more than 2,000 dead children are taking the NHS to the High Court.

They are seeking compensation after around 130 hospitals around the country removed organs and tissue from dead patients without consent.

According to a report in the Daily Express, the families decided to take legal action after being offered �1,000 each in compensation by the NHS.

Mervyn Fudge, a solicitor who is representing 1,500 families, told the BBC that his clients are also keen to show that hospital staff acted illegally when they kept organs without their consent.

What is the background to this case?

In 1998, an investigation into Bristol Royal Infirmary found that staff at the hospital had been keeping children's hearts without the permission of their parents.

An inquiry into how its cardiac unit was run was told that a similar policy operated at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool.

It subsequently emerged that the hospital's pathologist had kept thousands of children's organs without the consent of their parents.

Audits at other hospitals around the country revealed that they too had kept organs and tissue without consent. In most cases, they were stored for research purposes.

The Alder Hey families received �5m in compensation from the NHS - about �5,000 for each child. The judge involved in the case described the figure as "sensible and fair settlement".

What is the government saying?

The Department of Health says it cannot comment on this specific case at the moment.

Ministers are in the process of changing the law to ensure that no organs or tissue can, in future, be kept by hospitals without full consent.

The Human Tissue Bill is currently going through parliament. If passed, it could see doctors who keep organs without consent jailed for up to three years.

Some MPs and doctors have urged the government to take this opportunity to change the law on organ donation.

They want a system of "presumed consent" introduced. Under this system, people would be assumed to allow their organs to be made available for transplant when they die unless they have stated otherwise.