Have you registered your organ donation wishes?
National Transplant Week aims to encourage everyone to have a conversation with their family about their organ donation wishes, so that more lives can be saved.
Have you spoken to your family about your donation wishes?
Did you realise that in the event of anything happening to you, your family will be asked for their permission for organ donation to go ahead?
Letting them know your wishes now is a simple conversation to have, and could make it an easier decision at a difficult time. It doesn’t matter where or how you tell them, but you should make sure they know.
Over 90% of families will agree to donation if a loved one is registered and has discussed their wishes. This drops to around 40% if donation wishes are not known.
In the UK between 1 April 2011 and 31 March 2012:
- 3,960 organ transplants were carried out, thanks to the generosity of 2,143 donors.
- 1,107 lives were saved in the UK through a heart, lung, liver or combined heart/lungs, liver/kidney or liver/pancreas transplant.
- 2,846 patients’ lives were dramatically improved by a kidney or pancreas transplant, 173 of whom received a combined kidney/pancreas transplant.
- A further 3,521 people had their sight restored through a cornea transplant.
- A record number of 674 kidney transplants from donors after circulatory death took place and accounted for one in four of all kidney transplants.
- 1,009 living donor kidney transplants were carried out accounting for more than a third of all kidney transplants. ‘Non-directed’ living donor transplants (also known as altruistic donor transplants) and paired and pooled donations contributed more than 80 kidney transplants between them.
- Almost 942,000 more people pledged to help others after their death by registering their wishes on the NHS Organ Donor Register, bringing the total to 18,693,549 (March 2012).
To register your donation wishes, visit: www.transplantweek.co.uk
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