Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust has a duty of care to donors of organs, tissues and cells to ensure that their donated material is used and managed in accordance with:
- legal and regulatory requirements
- the terms of the consent under which it was donated
- standards of good practice
In order to ensure that our obligations are met, the Trust requires that all transfer of relevant material outside of its governance must only be under the terms of a material transfer agreement (MTA). An MTA provides assurance that the individual, organisation and project the material will be transferred to are suitable, that such transfer is in line with the consent given for donation, and that transfer of custodianship is acceptable to the Trust. It also ensures that both parties have documented their agreement of roles and responsibilities in relation to the relevant material to be transferred.
MTAs are also required for human tissue entering into Trust governance, to give assurances that the material has been obtained ethically and with appropriate consent. An MTA for the transfer of human material into the Trust’s governance (recipient) should be initiated by the person or organisation in possession of the material (donor).
More detail on the transfer of human tissue for research, service evaluation or audit can be found in the document below.
TG-SOP010-R Procedure for transferring material of human origin for use in research V3.0 (PDF, 102KB)