Changing Organ Donation Rules

Analysis: Changing organ donation rules
By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor
Last Updated: 2:12am BST 18/07/2007
Changing the law to automatically make everyone an organ donor unless they expressly register otherwise is controversial.
The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, cites Spain as an example where switching to an opt-out system increased the number of donor organs available.
But equally there are examples that show the opposite - Sweden has an opt-out system and a lower donation rate than the UK.
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Austria operates a "hard" opt-out system where the wishes of the deceased overrule those of the relatives completely but other European countries such as Belgium, have a soft opt-out system that gives families a say.
In America doctors have to ask relatives about the possibility of organ donation by law. This means possible donations are not missed and Sir Liam admitted that this can be a problem in the UK.
A report from UK Transplant, the organisation that matches recipients and donors, found that in 2003 and 2004 there was no record of families being approached about donation in 15 per cent of cases. These are valuable opportunities that have been missed.
The opt-out or presumed consent system runs the risk that those who have not consented to donation but have not registered their objections for whatever reason end up having organs taken. This could be extremely upsetting for family members and destroy public confidence in the transplant system.
Sir Liam argues that the only way to increase the number of organs available for donation is to change to an opt-out system but it may be more prudent to strengthen the current measures first before taking such a radical approach.
A large scale public awareness campaign highlighting that on average one person dies every while waiting for a donor organ may encourage relatives of potential donors to follow uphold their wishes and encourage more people to join the register.
The possibility of changing to an opt-out system has been debated in Parliament recently and again under the Human Tissue Act and on both occasions the consensus was that the opt-in register should remain