Organ donation should be opt out.

[m1nniedriver]

Just that really. If people have strong feelings on the matter then they are free to opt out, I really fail to see the issue with it.

The next of kin have to be available to answer the myriad of lifestyle and health history questions the transplant team have to ask. If there's no one to answer the questions the organs can't be used.

It's erroneous to call the Welsh system an opt-out system. It's really nothing of the sort, and fundamentally no different from the English, Scottish or Northern Irish system
Ah, I was going to reply to your first post on this.

Implementation of this system is costing how much?

YANBU OP. If anyone feels so strongly about their selfishness 'the state stealing their organs' they can opt out. Right now their are too many lazy/feckless people who say they would donate but can't actually be arsed to tick a box on a form to commit to it.

mileend What about people who cannot consent? Can we just do whatever to them because they have a brain injury or dementia?

This has really got me thinking and I can't understand why there isn't a national campaign to encourage people to sigh up and share their decision with their families, there are campaigns about every other bloody issue with the government trying to 'encourage' us to do things.

One year on dialysis costs more than a transplant and the related care for several year - so more donation would save the NHS money.

We need a social media campaign - like the ice bucket challenge.... Anyone got any ideas??????

There are campaigns - I see them loads, but I follow a lot of groups on Facebook related to transplants and organ donation.

This one from Argentina is by the same team who did one of the John Lewis christmas ads.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11627359/Touching-organ-donation-advert-The-man-and-the-dog-will-leave-you-in-tears.html

Live life then give life does some good campaigns in the UK. The most recent was Day of the Living for Halloween, but I think my favourite was the Let Love Live On campaign from a couple of years ago.
m.livelifegivelife.org.uk/our-work

What about people who cannot consent? Can we just do whatever to them because they have a brain injury or dementia?

If they haven't opted out prior to the brain injury then yes . That's kind of the idea? Obviously if people don't have the capacity to consent - children, learning difficulties etc then that's diffetent, one would presume they were unable to make the choice to oot out. Exactly the same as you wouldn't operate on someone emergency treatment is different unless they could consent.

We don't wait and consult relatives to carry out life saving treatment on unconscious emergency patients just incase they think they might not want it. The presumption is that they will so we carry on and do our best.

Opt-out consent will never happen here. It is too much of a minefield. Care.data is still on hold two years later because of the balls-up over consent, and that is only about sharing information.

If care.data had been opt-in, it would have been in operation for two years by now.

shiny apologies for misreading/misunderstanding your post.

IMO the answer still doesn't lie with opt-out, especially given the nok still have the overriding decision, and given that 47% of nok of those on the register refuse permission the register itself is at this point unfit for purpose.

Look at it this way:

of all the people on the donor register who become eligible to donate an organ, nearly half still don't donate because the nok refuse. The overriding issue here isn't that there is a lack of donors on the register (although that is of course still the case), but the overriding issue is that a sizeable number of eligible organs are not donated because the nok refuse consent to do so.

So first and foremost there needs to be a campaign to educate people to speak to their family about their wishes, merely by reducing the number of nok refusals we would almost double the number of organs available for donation. That surely has to be a starting point?

Forcing people through threats of death if they don't donate then they can't receive, or making the system opt out and overriding the wishes of nok will just make the issue worse and people less likely to donate.

Agreed. The answer isn't to persuade relatives to allow donation because the patient hasn't opted out - we need to persuade relatives of those who have opted in.

Why should we be in a position of having to 'persuade' grief stricken relatives to make this choice. It's absurd. We should support them through it if they are finding it hard but they should definately not have the choice. I Can't understand anyone thinking that's okay

plenty of other countries have higher organ donation rates than we do, and much lower rates of relative refusal. And afaik none of those countries have laws in place to force donations.

What needs to happen is for us to learn from those countries what steps they have taken to improve those rates. Because obviously what they're doing is working and what we are isn't.

Suggesting a system where people are forced to be organ donors or to donate relatives organs is a lazy response, and is likely to backfire.

The reality is that if someone has opted out of donation their relatives will still be contacted, most wouldn't go against the wishes of someone not to donate, that to people is different to the wish to donate - iyswim, so an opt out system would almost certainly have a more negative impact on the numbers of organs available for donation.

If I didn't know my relative's wishes and was in a position to give consent I would do so. But if a relative had explicitly opted out I wouldn't override that wish and consent to their organs being donated anyway. I don't imagine many people would.

Very glad that shiney's post has been reinstated. I didn't see it the first time, and while I can see how it could be misinterpreted at speed, the real meaning is very clear.

We should support them through it if they are finding it hard but they should definately not have the choice.

They have to have the choice. Otherwise the donation system will fall apart. We need to encourage people to state their wishes by opting-in or opting-out, and to try to get the relatives to respect that decision, or fill in the form stating the identity of the relative they wish to make the decision.

So a relative should be able to over ride a patients wishes? Dodgy territory there. The statistics speak for themselves.

Yes a relative should be able to override a patients wishes, they are the ones that have to live with it.

I find it hard to believe that many people would want to donate if they knew it was going to cause significant distress to their husband/wife/parent when they've just been told one of the hardest things they are are ever have to cope with.

I'm my mind, people that would knowingly cause that kind of upset to people they supposedly love are incredibly selfish, especially as if they feel that strongly about being an organ donor, they presumably had the opportunity to talk to their loved ones about their choice at the same time as they signed the register.

What is needed isn't really a change in the system, it's more education and more discussion. I think that if people knew what organ donation really meant, and they had plenty of opportunity to think about it while their lives were still carrying on as normal, then relatives wouldn't have to make a difficult decision at a time when they simply cannot be expected to be functioning normally. If more people made their wishes to be an organ donor known, then relatives wouldn't even feel they had much of a decision to make. They'd already know how the donation process worked, and they'd already know what their loved one wanted.

it's worth bearing in mind that most organ donations happen unexpectedly, so to speak. Most people who are eligible to donate are because of e.g. car accidents, sudden trauma etc where they are declared brain dead fairly quickly. So in general the relatives don't have much time to come to terms with both the knowledge that their loved one will die and to then be approached about organ donation. The window is relatively small.

This is why it's so crucial to be able to communicate with the nok in such a way that they do not feel pressured into giving consent but that they are dealt with sensitively at a time when they have already just suffered a trauma themselves.

It's very easy to sit here in the broad light of day and say "well, any relative who denies consent is bloody selfish," it's not so easy to make that statement when you've just told that relative that their parent/sibling/partner/child is going to die, oh and then expect them to spare a thought for those people on the transplant list who should have the right to benefit from their loved one's death.

I am not donating any of my organs. After death I am leaving my body to a research institute or a medical school. My donation will help train new generations of doctors and surgeons, or help develop cures for horrible diseases and will help save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. Organ donation will only save a handful. And yet because I am not on the register, it would seem many on this thread would deny me the chance to receive an organ if I needed one

I am very much against opt-out donation. Your body, your choice.

For what it's worth I don't think anyone should be denied a lifesaving transplant even if they are not on the register, although I agree it is a very good argument to make people rethink their views. I also don't think grieving relatives are selfish if they refuse organ donation. They are distressed and devastated, selfish is the wrong word.

I do think it's not a choice they should be able to make.

This has really got me thinking and I can't understand why there isn't a national campaign to encourage people to sigh up and share their decision with their families, there are campaigns about every other bloody issue with the government trying to 'encourage' us to do things.

The WI has this last year. Each year there is a Resolution which the membership get behind. Our Centenary year has 'It's Time to Talk' www.thewi.org.uk/campaigns/current-campaigns-and-initiatives/time-to-talk which has encouraged WIs and members to sign up and make their wishes clear to their families, thereby encouraging them to do the same.

Pseudonym99 why do you think the system would fall apart without relatives having this choice? I'm not being snarky, I just don't understand.

I would like to see an opt out system, but just from reading this thread I can see that there would be so many issues with this. A big improvement would be if people were asked by their GP (on registration or during check ups maybe) what their wishes are. They could then change this at any point if they wished, but at least we would have on record what they wished to do and I suspect a lot more people would be willing to donate than just the people who have to actively sign up for a card at present. In fact, wasn't this included when people applied for driving licences? Is that still done? I haven't had to change my licence for years so I have no idea.

I'm not happy that people can currently have their wishes overridden by their next of kin. When my ex was my NOK he didn't wish to donate organs himself, but I made it very very clear that I did, and if he went against my wishes I would be coming back to haunt him!