Medical officer insists move will help whole of UK

CHANGES to Scotland’s organ donor system will save more lives across the UK, health leaders say.

Charities hailed a decision by the government to introduce a system of presumed consent, which follows a five-year campaign by the Evening Times.

Dr Frank Atherton, Chief Medical Officer for Wales, which has already implemented a system of presumed consent, said the move would also benefit patients in England and Northern Ireland as donor organs can go anywhere in the UK.

The SNP government has not given a specific time frame yet for the legislative process to begin, only that it will be within this parliamentary session, which runs until 2021.

However, it could form part of the next legislative programme which will be detailed later this year.

The bill to introduce presumed consent in Wales was passed in July 2013 and introduced two years later on December 1 2015.

Dr Atherton said: “We are delighted that Scotland is moving down this road.

“It is to the Evening Times’ great credit that you have been pushing this along and I’m sure you will be delighted to see it come to fruition.

“The pool of organs is going to increase and that’s going to benefit everyone in the UK.

“Since we brought in deemed consent, just a year and a half ago we’ve had a lot of interest globally from Australia, from the Netherlands from Canada.

“In terms of outcomes, we are currently doing an evaluation which will be published in December this year.

“However, they are going in the right direction. It’s brought out a lot of the philanthropic nature of people.

“We have about six per cent of the population who have explicitly opted out.

“You also have people who explicitly opt-in and that’s about 37%.

“The legislative processes are different in Scotland but we had a time frame.

“We put a white paper together and had a two year implementation plan.

“We also built in the public communication side.

“Helping the public understand what their choices are... it took quite a bit of time.”

The Welsh public information drive included radio, online and TV adverts, posters and leaflets in GP surgeries and hospitals and through doors and information events in workplaces.

Awareness of the changes to organ donation in Wales is now sitting at around 82%.

The number of people who have discussed organ donation with their families has also risen.

The previous bill, led by Labour MSP Anne McTaggart, was narrowly defeated at stage 1 by 59 votes to 56.

The government said there were ‘legal ambiguities’ which could delay the decision-making processes.

Their criticisms centred on the use of “Authorised Investigating Persons” – health professionals whose role would be to determine whether a deceased adult’s organs could lawfully be removed and who would ful- fil this role. The Scottish law is likely to be broadly similar to the Welsh bill but may have slight differences.

THE minimum age for being a ‘presumed consent’ donor in Wales is 18 but this could be younger in Scotland. The Scottish Youth Parliament has said it is in favour of the minimum age being 16.

The Welsh system also gives people three options, to opt in, do nothing – whereby consent is deemed – or opt out. However, the Scottish system could be simpler.

Some concerns have been raised about whether hospitals in Scotland have the capacity for a significant increase in transplants, including sufficient intensive care beds. Some Glasgow surgeons at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital are understood to have cited concerns about the availability of operating theatres if numbers rise significantly.

Dr Atherton said: “It hasn’t been an issue in Wales, it’s not something we have experienced.

“There are always issues of capacity in any system.

“The deemed consent process is just one part of the overall process to increase organ donation.

“The organ donor register is already set up for it.

“Obviously there has to be training of staff involved in intensive care and this has to run in tandem with a public awareness campaign.”

Kidney charities have talked of the savings that will be made with less patients on dialysis, which costs around £35,000 per year, per patient.