Doctors should defend the wishes of patients on the organ donor register more “robustly”

Doctors and transplant coordinators need to more forcefully represent the views of people who have joined the organ donor register when families refuse to allow their organs to be harvested, those working in transplantation have said.

Although there has been widespread applause for the efforts made in the United Kingdom over the past five years to increase the number of deceased organ donors and transplantations, experts have said that a “revolution” is needed in public consent for organ donation if the rates are to improve further.

Figures released by NHS Blood and Transplant show that the number of deceased organ donors in the UK increased by 50% in five years, from 809 in 2008-09 …