'Significant' decline in organ donation concerns NHS team

The NHS has drawn up a response plan for the "first time ever" to address a "significant and accelerating" decline in organ donation, a specialist nurse has said.

NHS Blood and Transplant figures show deceased donation rates are 9% lower than at the same point last year, while the UK transplant waiting list has reached a record high.

Kate Hurley, specialist organ donation nurse at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, said it was "probably the most concerning time" she had experienced.

In Gloucestershire, 98 people are waiting for a transplant, while 40 transplants were carried out over the past year. Hurley said the NHS was calling for people to confirm their donation decision on the NHS register.

An "opt-out" donation system was introduced in England in 2020, and presumes consent to donate organs for all adults unless they explicitly remove themselves from the list.

Hurley, who has worked in the field of organ donation for 17 years, said consent rates were at about 67% when the law was changed but dropped to about 57% last year.

She explained: "Because you have the opportunity to opt out, by not opting out we can say that essentially you would be in favour of organ donation and would want to be a donor.

"But what we're seeing is family saying, 'We're not sure if it's what they would have wanted', and actually what we need to see is almost that shift and people going back to opting in on the organ donor register."

Hurley said the NHS was now "calling for one million people who have never registered before to confirm their organ donation decision on the NHS organ donor register".

Hurley said there had been an increase in the need for transplantation since the Covid-19 pandemic.

"What we've noticed is that more and more people are needing those life-saving transplants," she told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

"We are at a record level of more than 8,700 people waiting for that call and yet what we've noticed is our deceased donation programme - so that's patients who are donating their organs after they have died - has declined sharply."

Adrian Heeley, 60, of Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, had a simultaneous pancreas and kidney (SPK) transplant three years ago, which he said had "transformed" his life.

He is now campaigning for more people to sign up to the donor register.

"You've got to think if your loved one needs a transplant, would you save their lives because you can live on one kidney and it just makes one hell of a difference in life," he said.

"Here I am living my second life."

Hurley added: "We really really need need to have a massive call to action with the public really to help us try and up that decline that we're seeing."

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