30.07.12
Opting-out
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is conducting a survey to help guide its future strategy on organ donations and transplants. Amongst the ideas posed by this survey is changing policy so that people must opt out of donating their organs, with patient consent being assumed.
It must be emphasised that these ideas are just that, NHSBT has not endorsed any of the measures floated by the survey and the feedback will influence future not present policy.
But would a ‘consent assumed’ policy significantly increase the number of organs available for transplant? A great many people willing to donate organs find that circumstance does not facilitate the procedure.
Would it be the case that the large majority of people who don’t register as donors would find themselves or their families actively declining to donate?
Naturally, the measures suggested rely ethically on having a well-informed public, which is perhaps what the current system of active registration could stand to benefit from too.
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