PM Backs Plan To Donate Organs Without Consent

Jan 13 2008 By Norman Silvester

A RADICAL overhaul of the organ donation system could save hundreds of Scots' lives in the next five years.

A taskforce will this week call for new measures which will increase the number of organs made available for transplant.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown last night gave his support to the most controversial change proposed - the removal of organs from dead patients without their consent.

This policy of "presumed consent" would mean unless people opted out of the donor register or family members objected, hospitals could take their organs.

Brown said: "A system of this kind seems to have the potential to close the aching gap between the potential benefits of transplant surgery in theUKand the limits imposed by our current system of consent."

The proposals being outlined by the Organ Donation Taskforce could mean a 50 per cent increase in organ donation within five years - an extra 120 transplants a year in Scotland.

The Organ Donation Taskforce are also calling for the number of transplant coordinators to be doubled.

There are around 100 employed across Britain to guide and support bereaved families through the donation process.

Another hundred would mean a 10 per cent rise in the donation consent rate by relatives - currently 60 per cent of all donors.

Other proposals include establishing a strengthened network of organ retrieval teams that would be available to deliver organs to hospitals 24 hours a day.

Since 2000, 170 British patients - including 22 Scots - have been forced to go abroad for transplant surgery.

More than 700 Scots are on a waiting list. Just 50 operations were performed last year and 52 people died before treatment.

Patients wait around two years for a kidney and more than a year for a lung.

The Scottish Government insist they are committed to the new measures.

They said yesterday: "If we are able to increase the number of transplants there will be significant clinical and economic benefits."

Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon added:

"I welcome the taskforce's report and can confirm that Scotland is fully committed to implementing its recommendations.

"The shortage of donor organs for transplantation is an increasing problem and we are determined to address this.

"I want everyone to seriously consider signing up to the Organ Donor Register.

More Scots have put their names on the register than in any other part of the UK.

"Despite this, Scotland still has one of the lowest organ-donation rates in the EU.

"I am sympathetic towards the idea of introducing a system of presumed consent and welcome the fact the taskforce is considering this approach."

The Organ Donation Taskforce was set up in December 2006 to look at how to improve transplant rates.

In February 2006, MSPs removed the right of relatives of registered donors to veto donation but did not back presumed consent.