Alan Milburn, the health secretary, will today promise further measures to ensure that people's organs are not kept for research after death without the knowledge of their families.

He is expected to tell the House of Commons that rules governing coroners' powers to order investigations of bodies need tightening to prevent similar scandals.

Mr Milburn's announcement will coincide with publication of a report into how organs removed as part of postmortems have then been used for research. Jeremy Metters, the inspector of anatomy, investigated the case of Cyril Isaacs, a Manchester businessman who committed suicide in 1987. His brain was passed to researchers at Manchester University after the postmortem without the permission of his wife Elaine. She only found out by accident years later.

Dr Metters is expected to say this practice was widespread, at least until the furore over the retention of children's organs at Alder Hey hospital on Merseyside four years ago.

Today's report will heighten concerns that fewer people will give consent to retention of organs after postmortem examination and therefore damage research into a wide range of diseases.

· The father of Jonathan Simms, the first patient with variant CJD to be given the drug pentosan polysulphate by injection into his brain, believes the treatment may be having a beneficial effect. Don Simms, who won a landmark high court ruling to enable Jonathan to be treated, tells Real Story on BBC1 tonight: "We see that he's more responsive. It's a suggestion that it's working."