From July 2011 anybody applying for a new driving licence in the UK will be asked a question to donate their organs in the event of their death, as a means to increase organs donated.
This question exists on the DVLA application forms now, but it is optional, yet despite this over 8m have provided consent. The new ‘method’ will require an answer either as ‘Yes, I wish to become a donor’, or ‘No, i do not want to answer this now’. This is a pilot scheme to try and increase numbers of donors, and if successful will roll out to other routes such as passport applications.
At the present time approximately 27% of the UK population are registered as donors, set against much higher numbers who claim, through surveys, to want to donate their organs, but have ‘not got around to registering’.
In this country we still have over 1000 people a year who die waiting for some form of transplant.
The public health minister, Anne Milton, suggests that prompted choice processes in the US have taken donor rates from 38% in some states to over 60%, and it is felt the same can be achieved here. However, the BMA has continued its campaign for presumed consent so proposing dramatically changing the donor scene. They renewed their call for presumed consent just last month. I’ve blogged on this before, so wait with interest, but until presumed consent ever makes it through parliament (assuming it gets discussed again), we must pursue other avenues for patient care to make dialysis a better respected option.
