The General Medical Council is to tell GPs that they should initiate discussions with dying patients and their relatives about organ donation in a bid to cut the United Kingdom’s chronic shortage of donor organs.

Revised guidance from the GMC on care at the end of life, due to be published in January, is expected to feature a clause obliging all doctors to raise the question of organ donation with appropriate patients.

A recent GMC consultation on revising its guidance on end of life care saw wide support for measures to encourage more people to join the organ donor register. “The consultation revealed …