The majority of transplant professionals would like the UK to adopt some form of presumed consent law over the use of body parts, according to a survey to be released today at the annual meeting of the British Transplantation Society (BTS) in Birmingham.
The survey of 500 members of the BTS, which represents hundreds of doctors, surgeons, nurses and scientists working on all aspects of organ transplant, attracted around 300 responses, of which 82% wanted a change in the present law that requires donors to register their wishes and their family to agree to use of their organs. More than 11 million people in the UK are registered organ donors.
Of the respondents, 29% wanted a system of "hard opt-out", requiring those who did not want their organs used to benefit others after their death to specifically register their dissent, while 52% wanted a "soft opt-out" that would presume consent in the same way but allow relatives to object to any transplantation.
Dr Peter Rowe, the chairman of the BTS ethics committee and a consultant physician at the south-west transplant centre in Plymouth, said that the results of the survey would be discussed by the BTS Council and could lead to pressure on the government to amend the human tissue bill now going through parliament.
"Any change to an opt-out system of presumed consent would need careful wording. The survey is a significant gauge of feeling across a broad range of transplantation professionals. I think they [transplant professionals] are concerned that the bill, as drafted, will create a very rigid system, cutting back the supply of donor organs when there is already a severe shortage," said Dr Rowe.
The bill responds to the scandal of children's organs being retained by the Bristol Royal Infirmary and Liverpool's Alder Hey Hospital for research without parental consent. It would create a single human tissue authority to oversee a far more tightly regulated use of both organs and tissue samples.
The BTS meeting, which marks 50 years since the first kidney transplant was carried out in Boston in 1954, will see the presentation of dozens of clinical papers, discussions on research priorities and the future of transplantation, as well as debates over ethical dilemmas, such as transplant tourism and the commercialisation of body parts, which is illegal in the UK.
"Views are changing within the transplant professions. The most recent meeting of the American Society of Nephrologists was divided 50-50 over whether to support the idea of a state-regulated market [in organs], and I think a growing number of younger medical staff in the UK may be moving towards that idea if it means fewer people die while waiting for a transplant," said Dr Rowe.