Doctors will push for ‘opt-out’ organ donation scheme

June 23, 2016

British Medical Association want automatic consent unless they opt out
Estimated three patients die every day in England while on transplant list
Similar system in Wales has seen organ donors increase by a third

Sophie Borland Health Editor For The Daily Mail

Published:
09:44 EST, 22 June 2016

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Updated:
08:24 EST, 23 June 2016

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Organ donation after death should be automatic – unless people opt out, doctors’ leaders have demanded.

The British Medical Association yesterday passed a key vote which will now see them lobby the Government to enforce a system of presumed consent for organ donation in England.

In December, Wales became the first UK country to adopt the policy and Scotland and Northern Ireland are expected to follow suit within the next two years.

The outcome of BMA’s vote at their annual conference in Belfast will now pile the pressure on ministers to change the law to ensure England is not left behind.

An estimated three patients die each day in need of a donor organ and there are currently 6,500 on the waiting list including 150 children.

Doctors will now lobby the Government to enforce a system of presumed consent for organ donation

Doctors are routinely having to use organs from smokers, the very elderly, drug addicts and the elderly as they are in such short supply.

Figures show that less than a third of Britons have registered to be donors and campaigners say many more would want to, but haven’t got round to it.

But opponents say the system would set a ‘dangerous perception’ that patients’ organs would be taken unless they had filled out a form.

The BMA will now lobby the Government to adopt a ‘soft’ system of presumed consent – as exists in Wales – whereby patients would be provisionally on the donor register unless they had opted out, online or by a helpline.

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If a patient died who hadn’t opted out, nor opted in – as under the existing law – then family members would be consulted on their wishes.

Dr John Chisholm, chair of the BMA’s medical ethics committee, said: ‘As a doctor, it is difficult to see your patients dying and suffering when their lives could be saved or dramatically improved by a transplant.

‘It is even more difficult when we know that lives are being lost unnecessarily because of poor organisation, lack of funding or because people who are willing to donate organs after their death simply never get around to making their views known.

‘Organ transplantation is an area that has seen amazing medical achievements but has not yet reached its full life-saving and life-transforming potential.’

Doctors say the existing opt-in system doesn’t work as relatives are blocking organs from being taken from their loved ones, even if they had registered as donors.

Dr Sarah Mills, a GP in Cupar, Fife, and member of the BMA’s junior doctors committee said: ‘We’re not going for a draconian ‘we own your body’ policy.

An estimated three patients die each day in need of a donor organ and there are currently 6,500 on the waiting list including 150 children

‘Nobody is running around with wheelbarrows, there won’t be bodysnatchers.’

‘Nobody wants organs from anybody who didn’t want to donate.’

But Dr Dorry Segev, an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore the US, has previously warned that an opt

out system creates a ‘dangerous perception.’

In a powerful editorial published in the journal Transplantation in 2011, he wrote: ‘With opt out the perception becomes, ‘’We will take your organs unless you take the time to fill out a form’.

‘That’s a dangerous perception to have. We only want to use donated organs from people who intended to donate.’

Figures for Wales show that in the first six months under the new system the numbers donating their organs has increased by a third.

A total of 31 patients provided donor organs since December including 10 who had not stated their wishes.

In the same period for 2014/15 the figure was 21 and it was 23 in 2013/14.

A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Our efforts remain focussed on encouraging donor registration and discussions within families about donation to increase consent rates, but we are monitoring how these changes in Wales are affecting donation rates.’

A spokesman for NHS Blood and Transplant, the organisation which oversees donation said: ‘We are grateful to everyone who donates their organs as people in need of transplants entirely depend upon organ donors.

‘We welcome activity that encourages people to discuss organ donation and to donate their organs for transplant.’