UK Health Radio Medical News Update Transplant News

UK Health Radio Medical News Update

Transplant News

Encouraging news today from the BBC report that the number of organ transplants is continuing to rise. The UK, however, still lags behind other countries, official figures show.

Transplants carried out in 2013-14 were at a figure of 4,655 that is a 10% rise on the year before and the good news is that this is the eighth year in succession that the transplant figures have risen.

While this is good news data from NHS Blood and Transplant show that there are still three people a day dying directly because of a shortage of donors.

A target to increase the donor rate by more than 50% has been set by the NHS for the year 2020. Achieving this would bring the UK in line with the best performing countries such as Spain.

The emphasis in recent years has been translating the number of people on the donor register - just over 20 million currently - into organs being made available.  The number of families who block organ donation after a loved one has died, stands at 4 in 10, and that is even if the person who has died was registered as an organ donor.

Hospitals have increasingly been employing more specialist organ-donation nurses to deal with the approach and support of the bereaved relatives in hospitals to try and rectify this reluctance.

Sally Johnson, of NHS Blood and Transplant, said that it was also essential for those signing up to the organ donor register to let their families know and to discuss their wishes with them before death.  She commented that while they understood that families were having to consider donation in their darkest hour and thinks that rather than waiting for that moment, they should ask themselves if is was right to accept people dying because they did not get the transplant they needed in the UK?

She urged people to think about whether they would accept an organ for themselves or would want someone they loved to be saved by a transplant, and if so, we should be willing to donate too.

Not all donations are from dead patients, however. Figures show that just over 1,000 of the transplants last year were donations from living people.

Amanda Thomas

UK Health Radio Medical News Update

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