NHS JOINS WITH BOOTS TO LAUNCH EXCITING NEW ORGAN DONATION SCHEMEOn Tuesday 1 August, Boots launched a new way of joining the NHS Organ Donor register.
Under the scheme Boots customers who apply for or already have the store’s in-house ‘Advantage’ loyalty card will be able to join the NHS Organ Donor register by simply ticking a box on the application form. The card holders details will then be passed to UK Transplant for input onto the register. Customers receive an Advantage Card with the NHS organ donor symbol on it indicating their wish to donate.
Health Minister, Lord Hunt, who was present at the launch, said “This is an exciting initiative to help raise further the public’s awareness of the shortage of organs for transplantation. In the past year we have already increased the register by over a million. It would be marvellous if we could add another million as a result of this initiative.”
Sophie Parke, aged 11 and a double heart transplant patient, said, “I am supporting the campaign for donor registration so that more lives can be saved. I now have a life to look forward to thanks to my special donors.” Sophie used to suffer from cardiomyopathy, a weakening of the heart muscle. She received her first piggyback heart transplant in 1992. Her health improved dramatically and she started nursery school and then junior school the following year. Her own heart continued to deteriorate as she grew bigger and in 1998 she received her second heart. Her own heart was removed and the second transplant was attached to transplant number one, leaving her with two donor hearts.
At the moment there are over 6,000 people waiting for a life-saving transplant but only around 2,800 transplant operations carried out a year. 8.7 million people are currently registered on the NHS Organ Donor scheme. The numbers of donors, however, has reduced in recent years due to improvements in neurology and a major reduction in road traffic accidents. Usually people are only suitable as organ donors if they die as a result of sudden brain injury whilst receiving mechanical ventilation in an intensive care unit. Only one per cent of the population die in these circumstances.
Boots, with its 12 million Advantage Card holders and new applicants running at 30,000 a week, hope this new scheme will make it easy and convenient to register for the NHS Organ Donor scheme. This is one of a number of initiatives as part of the Organ Donation publicity campaign that the Department of Health is promoting to encourage more people to become donors.
But transplant co-ordinators say that the crucial factor is whether people have informed their families that they wish to donate. Objection by families to donation is almost unknown if the family is aware their loved one wished to donate. Hopefully this new initiative will encourage this sensitive subject to be discussed amongst families and friends.
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Page created: 11 August 2000
Last updated: 27 February 2011