The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Freeman, did not respond to most of the questions put to it by the BBC, including why it thought it appropriate to let Ms Booth resume her surgical career. The trust did however point to a problematic working culture in the cardiac unit at the time of the failures, while internal reports have criticised poor governance procedures and a reluctance from senior staff to take responsibility over safety concerns.
Surgeons have developed two low-cost techniques to revive the hearts of people who wish to donate their organs after they die. These methods have only been tested on a small number of people, but they avoid ethical issues sometimes associated with current transplantation techniques.