Nathan Emmerich

NHS Blood and Transplant service (NHSBT) recently published their Organ Donation and Transplantation Activity Report for 2104/15. It shows that there has been a 3% fall in the number of individuals who become post-mortem organ donors. This is the first time in 11 years that there has been a fall and reporting of the figure has been accompanied by calls for the UK as a whole to move to an ‘opt-out’ system of registration; a system in which consent to donation is presumed. The context for this call is that against expectations a 2008 report by the Organ Donation Taskforce took the view that it would be premature to change the UK’s system of registration to one where consent was presumed. Instead it recommended that other methods of increasing the number of organs available for transplant should be pursued. Subsequently, between 2008/09 and 2013/14, there has been a 50% increase in the number of post-mortem organ donors. Thus, whilst this recent fall is discouraging it comes on the back of significant progress, progress that has met the targets set out in the 2008 report.