HEALTH chiefs at Ronkswood have admitted the hospital may have unwittingly misled parents over the retention of their baby's heart.

Worcester Royal Infirmary is the latest hospital to be implicated in the "stolen hearts" scandal after investigations into practices at the Diana, Princess of Wales Children's Hospital, in Birmingham, Liverpool's Alder Hay, and Bristol Royal Infirmary.

Devastated mum Sue Harris, whose six-day-old daughter Leanne died in Ronkswood in 1988, only discovered doctors had taken her heart in March this year.

The hospital today could not reveal how many other families might be affected.

Leanne, who had a hole in her heart, was one of triplets. Her brother Karl, who suffered from the same defect, died days later during surgery at Birmingham. His organs were not retained.

Lee, the surviving triplet, has Down's syndrome.

"Two minutes after Leanne died, the doctor held out the post mortem paper for me to sign," said Mrs Harris, of Warndon, who had undergone surgery to stop her haemorrhaging after a Caesarean.

"I was coming out of anaesthetic. I was really groggy. She never explained to me what 'tissue retention' meant. To me tissues are something you blow your nose or wipe your backside on. They're not organs."

Mrs Harris - who has three older children - contacted Birmingham Children's Hospital in March, after the Evening News revealed doctors there had retained 1,500 organs.

But when she contacted Ronkswood, the 50-year-old said, the hospital was "evasive" and told her to make an appointment the next month.

"I felt I'd lost Leanne all over again," she said. "They told us her heart had been incinerated after a year.

"When I asked why they destroyed it, the pathologist told me it wasn't human, it was a dead body. We've never got over her, or Karl's death. Now we never will."

Geoff Crawshaw, director of human resources for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, admitted that medical terminology on the consent forms could have misled parents.

"It may not have fully explained the procedures," he said. "The consent procedure for post mortems has been tightened up and explains the difference between tissues and organs.

"The death of a baby's a very distressing event and we fully appreciate Mrs Harris' continued sadness."