30 Years of Life Saving NHS Organ Donor Register

Organ donation is a lifesaving gift – Minister hails 30 years of NHS Organ Donor Register

As the annual UK Organ Donation Week (23 to 29 September) gets underway, Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has welcomed Northern Ireland’s growing rate of support for organ donation.

In this, the 30th year of the NHS Organ Donor Register, more than a million adults in Northern Ireland - 55% of the population here - have registered their decision to be considered a potential organ donor after death, the highest rate of all the UK nations.

On 1 June last year, the Organ and Tissue Donation (Deemed Consent) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 came into effect, meaning that adults in NI are considered potential organ donors unless they choose to opt in or opt out, or are in an excluded group.

To mark Organ Donation Week, Minister Nesbitt visited the Renal Transplant Service at Belfast City Hospital, the regional centre for patients with all forms of kidney disease. The team provides inpatient, outpatient and day-case services for patients at each stage of the kidney disease pathway. This ranges from diagnosis to dialysis and kidney transplantation. Belfast is the UK’s fourth largest centre for living donor kidney transplantation despite serving just 3% of the UK population. So far in 2024, 59 kidney transplants have been carried out here.

The Minister said: “Organ donation is a lifesaving gift, and with the number of people awaiting transplant exceeding the number of available organs, it is essential that we do everything we can to encourage and facilitate it. That means continuously educating and promoting informed conversation, as well as improving the infrastructure to support both living and deceased donation.

“That is something that our Health and Social Care system has done remarkably well, lifting Northern Ireland from having one of the lowest rates of awareness and support for organ donation in Europe, to one of the highest. It is testament to the work of our Trust Organ Donation Committees, our world class Renal Transplant Team here at Belfast City Hospital, Specialist Nurses and Clinical Leads working in conjunction with the Public Health Agency over many years. I was delighted to have the opportunity to hear about their work and I commend all of them for their skill and dedication.”

Dr Stephen O’Neill, Consultant Transplant Surgeon and Clinical Director for Nephrology and Transplantation in Belfast City Hospital, said: “We have a very busy transplant programme in Northern Ireland, with about 110 transplants per year. Half of the kidneys for transplantation will be from living donors and half from deceased donors. None of the work that we do would be possible without the great team that we have and, of course, the generosity of the donors.”

Dr Aisling Courtney, Consultant Transplant Nephrologist and clinical lead for transplantation at Belfast City Hospital, added: “Northern Ireland has the smallest waiting list for kidney transplantation in the whole of the UK, which is fantastic, but we still need organ donors. So I would ask people, could you transform someone’s life, could you make a difference? Could you be a donor? Have a think about it and have that conversation with your relatives.”

The introduction of the system of deemed consent in 2023 means that most adults are presumed to have consented to organ donation unless they have explicitly opted out. The UK-wide Organ Donor Register (ODR), operated by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), enables individuals to register their wishes to either become an organ donor in the event of their death, or to register that they do not want to be considered for organ donation. 2024 marks the ODR’s 30th anniversary.

The latest figures indicate that 1,082,893 NI residents have opted-in on the ODR, which is 55% of the NI population, and 23,657 have recorded a decision to opt-out of organ donation, which is just over 1% of the NI population.

The Health Minister concluded: “The introduction of deemed consent is just not about saving lives, it is also about ensuring that the wishes of individuals are respected. Crucially, families will always be a part of the donation discussion in the rare cases where donation after death is clinically possible. As we celebrate the remarkable achievements of 30 years of the ODR during Organ Donation Week 2024, this remains the best way to record your decision and I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to do so.”

Photo Caption: Seána Maguire, Spanish teacher, Aquinas Grammar, who teaches a module on organ donation to Key Stage 5 pupils; Aidan Dawson, CEO Public Health Agency; Health Minister Mike Nesbitt; Transplant Consultant Tim Brown, and Dr Marie Dowling, Principal, Aquinas Grammar.