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Embargoed for Thursday 8 October 00:01 - Hundreds more transplants, but more organ donors still needed

News Release issued by the COI News Distribution Service on 07 October 2009

Almost a million more people registered to become organ donors in the last year and hundreds more lives were saved in the UK through organ transplants according to a new report, launched by Health Secretary Andy Burnham today.

The report details the progress made in the first year of the Organ Donation Taskforce Implementation Programme, set up by the Government to increase organ donation by more than 50% by 2013 with the aim of enabling the NHS to carry out more than 1,400 extra transplants every year.

The Programme aims to do this by implementing the 14 recommendations of made by the Organ Donation Taskforce in January 2008. The report shows the following progress has been made since the implementation team began its work in June 2008:

- A 7% increase in people signing on to the Organ Donor Register. This is now more than one in four of the population (16.3 million people, 27% of the UK);
- A record rise of 11% in people donating after death – providing 174 extra transplants
- A rise of 12% in living organ donors – providing 104 extra transplants
- A total of 3516 people received a life-changing organ transplant in 2008/09
- 170 Donor Transplant Co-ordinators are now in post, with further recruitment currently underway

- 148 Clinical Leads appointed in hospitals with the highest donation potential

Andy Burnham said:

“I am delighted to see that many more people are now donating organs both while they are still alive and after they have died which has helped to save hundreds of lives. We have made an excellent start, but there is still a long way to go.

“We will continue to support the NHS so that we can achieve our aim to save an extra 1400 lives each year through the amazing gift of organ donation. We are aiming to get 20 million people on Organ Donor Register in 2010, working towards 25 million by 2013.

“We have already invested £16.5million to implement the taskforce’s recommendations with a further £26.5million being invested in 2009/10.”

National Clinical Director for Transplantation, Chris Rudge, said:

“I would like to thank everyone working with us to implement the Taskforce recommendations in particular the hundreds of Donor Transplant Co-ordinators, Clinical Leads for Organ Donation and Non-Clinical Champions, who are putting the Taskforce’s vision in to practice. Their work will help to ensure that in future, organ donation becomes a usual part of NHS practice.”

These excellent results are due to a new organisational structure that provides a more a joined-up way of working within the NHS and making organ donation usual, rather than unusual across the health service.

We expect to have all the extra NHS staff recruited and in place by March 2010 so that the full impact of the new system will drive organ donor numbers up even further.

Ends

Notes to editors:

1. For a copy of the report please see: www.dh.gov.uk/organdonation
2. In the last year around 65 new donor transplant co-ordinators have been recruited and embedded within acute hospitals. This brings the total to 170, a strenghtened network of dedicated organ retrieval teams to be available 24 hours a day working closely with the critical care teams in hospitals. Clinical Leads have been appointed to drive this continued progress.
3. In January 2008, the 14 recommendations of the Organ Donation Taskforce in their report Organs for Transplants were accepted by the four health departments of the UK. The Organ Donation Taskforce Implementation Programme was established in June 2008 to put these 14 recommendations into practice: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_082122
4. More than 10,000 people in the UK need a transplant, with this figure rising by 8% every year.
5. For all media enquiries please contact the DH media centre on tel: 020 7210 5221

Contacts:

Department of Health
Phone: 020 7210 5221
NDS.DH@coi.gsi.gov.uk