Website of the Department of Health

The CJD Incidents Panel is an expert panel set up in August 2000 by the UK Chief Medical Officer to provide advice to clinicians and others responsible for healthcare on what action to take if a patient is diagnosed as having, or develops symptoms suggestive of, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) some time after having undergone an invasive medical procedure or having donated blood, organs or tissues.

This includes advice about any instruments involved and on the likely level of risk to other patients who may have been in contact with the instruments or who received organs, tissues or blood preparations that may have been contaminated. The level of risk will depend on a number of factors and the Panel considers each case individually.

The Panel comprises independent experts in the field of prion diseases, representatives from a range of professional bodies involved in healthcare, legal and ethics advisers and lay members. The Panel is chaired by an ethicist and reports to the Joint Working Group (JWG) of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens. The devolved administrations are fully consulted and attend Panel meetings.

The Panel will provide an annual report of its work to the JWG and it is anticipated that this annual report will be made public. The Panel is also developing a framework of guidance which sets out the evidence basis and ethical principles which underlie the advice the Panel provides. It is intended that this framework will be made public as a draft for consultation. The scientific information available to guide the assessment and management of the risk of transmission of CJD through medical procedures is currently limited. The framework will be a working document to be revised in the light of experience and new evidence.

The CJD Incidents Panel wishes to make information on the progress of its work publicly available as rapidly as possible. The attached public summaries are not intended to provide guidance nor to indicate conclusions the Panel has reached but they highlight the areas that are under consideration, particularly those areas where there is a high degree of uncertainty or differences of opinion. The Panel hopes that these summaries will be of interest to healthcare professionals who may have to cope with an incident in the future. The Panel also hopes that the summaries will stimulate debate, not only among healthcare professionals, but also in the wider public.