Opt out of Organ Donations

1.10.34pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 18th Jul 2007

Donor Card

I have long been an advocate of people having to opt-out of Organ Donations moving to a system where consent is automatically presumed. I was glad to see yesterday that the Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson has suggested that it happen.

Apparently every day at least one patient dies while on the transplant waiting list and something like 7,000 people on the waiting list at any one time.

When Spain introduced an opt-out system for organ donation the number of donations has soared and the transplant waiting list has shortened.

Of course there will have to be various safeguards and it made relatively easy for people to opt-out but moving to presumed consent will save many many more lives.