British Prime Minister in favour of presumed consent for organ transplants

Jan 14 2008

British Prime Minister Gordan Brown is calling for a debate on organ donation and says he is in favour of a policy known as "presumed consent" ; this would allow for organs to be transplanted without consent.

Gordan Brown says such a policy would allow doctors to transplant organs from people who have died into living patients regardless of whether consent has been given.

Prime Minister Brown says he believes thousands of lives would be saved if everyone was automatically placed on the donor register.

He says the system has the potential to close the huge gap between the potential benefits of transplant surgery in the UK and the limits imposed by the current system of consent.

According to Mr. Brown over 1000 people die each year in the UK while waiting for organ transplants and this number would be greatly reduced if such a plan was initiated.

Under current British law organs can only be removed from a person when they die if they have given consent before hand, or if a family member consents.

The Organ Donation Taskforce, set up by the government in 2006, is due to publish its report this week and is expected to make recommendations, which will boost the level of organ donations.

Currently there are more than 8,000 people waiting for organ transplants in the UK - a figure which rises by about 8% a year.

Mr Brown, who himself carries an organ donor card hopes the proposals will be introduced this year.

The Organ Donation Taskforce, set up by the government in 2006, is due to publish its report this week and it is expected to make recommendations, which will boost the level of organ donations.

The recommendations which are considered to be a prerequisite to improving the system include doubling the number of transplant co-ordinators who will identify possible donors, talk to bereaved families and inform the national transplant list and the establishing of dedicated organ retrieval teams who are available 24 hours to work closely with critical care teams in hospital.

According to the taskforce an extra 1,200 transplants could then carried out each year, which could save the NHS more than £500m over 10 years in dialysis treatment alone.

Tony Calland, the chairman of the British Medical Association's medical ethics committee says such a move would change the public awareness of organ donation and transplantation in general.

Calland says in Spain there has been a considerable increase in the number of organs available since such a policy change was implemented.

British Health Secretary Alan Johnson says in 2007 around 2,400 people in the UK benefited from an organ transplant, but more than 1,000 people die every year waiting for a transplant.

Campaigners also support the change and say people are dying while waiting for transplants but critics including groups such as Patient Concern, are against a system of presumed consent, and say it is not up to the state to decide what becomes of people's bodies when they die.