18.10.13
NHS Blood & Transplant organ donation plans approved
The NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) Board has approved the organisation’s implementation plan to support delivery of the new transplant strategy for 2020.
The strategy sets out goals for organ donation and transplant, including improving authorisation/consent rates above 80%, bringing the deceased donor rate up to 26 per million of the population, transplanting 5% more of the organs offered, and increasing the number of patients receiving a transplant to 74 per million of the population.
Priorities for NHSBT also include developing the Organ Donor Register so the system of deemed consent in Wales can be implemented successfully, establishing a National Referral Service to improve support to hospitals, and to develop and implement a training and accreditation programme for all retrieval surgeons.
Sally Johnson, director of organ donation and transplantation at NHS Blood and Transplant said: “The delivery of the challenging aims set out in the strategy will depend on a collaborative approach involving NHSBT, the four UK Health Departments, NHS regulators, professional organisations and commissioners working together. We will also need to see a change to attitudes in Society so it becomes the norm for people to donate if and when they can. If any of these groups fail to respond, the aims will not be fully achieved.
“Many of the actions contained within the strategy fall to us, NHS Blood and Transplant, to lead. We have now set out and had agreed by our Board a phased approach to implementation, focusing first on those areas that have the greatest potential to increase the transplant rate, or that require a long lead-in time.
“There has already been a big increase in workload for everyone involved in donation and transplantation and we have to make sure that we build capacity and sustain our current operations whilst also striving to increase the number of deceased donor transplants.”
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