Now you’ll have to opt out of donating organs

PATIENTS will automatically become organ donors unless they opt out, under a major change in the law.

Ministers claim the new system of presumed consent will save up to 700 lives a year. It will be rolled out in spring 2020 and will be known as Max’s Law, after a ten-year-old boy who was saved by a heart transplant last year.

But critics say the system will undermine patient trust without necessarily increasing the number of organ transplants.

They include the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which instead wants the Government to put more effort into encouraging patients to be donors. Last year, 457 patients died waiting for an organ transplant while another 875 were taken off the waiting list because they became too ill for surgery. Many have since died or remain terminally ill.

Currently, anyone wanting to be an organ donor must sign up to the NHS’s Organ Donor Register. But research has shown that while 82 per cent of people in England would want to donate their organs, only 37 per cent have joined the register.

Jackie Doyle-Price, parliamentary undersecretary of state for mental health and inequalities, said: ‘Organ donation saves lives. We believe that by making these changes, we can save as many as 700 more lives every year.

‘But organ donation remains a gift. I want to encourage people who wish to give life in the event of their death to take the time to record their wishes and discuss it with their family.

‘We know this new system alone is not a magic bullet. We need to address myths and misconceptions around donation, and we will only do this by having informed debate and dialogue, which I hope will be fostered by these proposals.’

The presumed-consent system will not include children under 18, people with limited mental capacity and people who have not lived in England for at least a year before their death.

It is named after tenyearold Max Johnson, from Winsford, Cheshire, who received a new heart last August after waiting nine months. His mother Emma Johnson, 47, campaigned for a change in the law to help other children and is said to have inspired 1,000 people to sign up to the organ register.

Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘ There is a desperate shortage of organ donors in the UK. Introducing an opt- out system in England will better reflect the views of the general public and give hope to those currently waiting for a transplant they so desperately need.’

But the Nuffield Council on Bioethics charity cited the example of Wales where the pre-sumed-consent system was introduced in 2015 but had not yet led to an increase in transplants.