Loss of lives, hope and trust in the NHS organ donor blunder

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDApr 13 2010

In one of the big NHS blunders, nearly 800,000 people who have pledged one or more of their organs for donation may have had their preferences of which organ/s recorded incorrectly for the past 10 years. There are nearly 17 million donors who consent to give all their organs. However some have preferences and withhold consent for some organs like eyes, skin or heart etc. Some had also expressed their wish that their body tissue should not be used in research after their death. This huge error came to public notice in 2009 when the NHS Blood and Transplant started sending out mails to potential donors to check their preferences. Many people wrote back that the information in the records were not right.

All donations form these people have been suspended temporarily. The NHS transplant authority has confirmed 21 cases of such “wrong” organ donations and has announced an independent review. They said that only people in Scotland, England and Wales who had registered as donors using their driving license application form were potentially affected.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham expressed his regrets on this mistake and urged people to continue donating after assuring that this will be fixed soon. And he added that a system has been set up to prevent a recurrence of this mistake.

Mr. Burnham also assured that a review led by Professor Sir Gordon Duff, of Sheffield University would investigate the error. He said, “We do need to get to the bottom of it…It would appear to relate to a technical error going back to 1999 and this was how data was transferred between the DVLA (Driving and Vehicle Licensing Authority) and the blood and transplant service. That has now been corrected.”

The NHS Blood and Transplant also said in a statement, “We assure everyone currently on the organ donor register that the affected records will not be used in discussions with their family about organ donation…. They will only be used once they have been corrected in accordance with the donors' wishes.” They claim that 400,000 records have already been put right and attempts are being made to contact all the donors affected by this error.

However according to The British Medical Association, public confidence may have been damaged by this mistake. The chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum said: "You want people to come forward and donate their organs in good faith so that people who have serious conditions can have their lives saved…It does erode the public confidence in that and that's very concerning." Many have reacted with shock at the state of affairs saying that such “sensitive data” has been “carelessly handled” and nothing short of a “full enquiry” is needed.

The loss of donors’ trust could spell doom for many waiting in line for a transplant. There are more than 10,000 people waiting for a donor organ and about 1,000 people die each year while on the list. Around 3,500 operations are carried out a year with organs from about 1,500 people. Joyce Robins, the co-director of Patient Concern echoed such thoughts and said, “This is a terrible tragedy for patients awaiting a transplant. Lives may be lost because people could be deterred from joining the register.” In these cases the families of the deceased who was to be a potential donors have the final say. Prof Peter Friend, a Professor of transplant surgery at Oxford University said, “If a family says ‘no’ for a donor who would have wanted it to happen, there are two or three avoidable deaths. It is a disaster.”