Trials to boost the number of healthy people prepared to donate one of their kidneys for transplant are being launched to ease the chronic shortage of organs.

Britain has far fewer living donors than other countries. Over the last 14 months there were 1,915 transplants, including 526 from live donors who were relatives, friends or in an established relationship with the recipient. But 6,000 patients remain on waiting lists and there are 19,000 patients in all on dialysis.

Living kidney donations have a 93% organ survival rate a year after transplant, against 87% for those who had a kidney from a donor who had died. At five years, there is an 84% success rate against 73%. Part of the problem of the shortage of living donors is thought to lie in the fact that patients are only invited to really focus on people they know who might be able to donate kidneys after they have been referred to specialist transplant units.

Now the emphasis is going to be on educating patients at dialysis units, as soon as they have been diagnosed with chronic renal failure, thus possibly allowing them to benefit from transplants far earlier than most do at present.

From next year, the law is being changed to allow people to donate their kidneys to strangers in an attempt to boost supply, although donors will still not be allowed to make financial profit. People can live very happily on one kidney. Some are born with only one and have perfectly healthy lives, and research by YouGov before the new government-backed campaign has suggested most people understand this.

However, only 44% of more than 2,114 people surveyed online would consider donating a kidney, with a big fear even among potential donors that the remaining kidney might be damaged in some way.

The initiative is to be tried out in units at the Royal Preston hospital, Lancashire, and New Cross hospital, Wolverhampton. The health minister, Rosie Winterton, said: "The number of patients requiring a transplant has increased dramatically over recent years. We really need to follow examples set in the US and in Scandanavian countries where living kidney donation accounts for up to 40% of all kidney transplants."

Sue Sutherland, chief executive of UK Transplant, the NHS body overseeing transplants, said: "Increasing the education of patients and their families and friends about living kidney as an option is an imperative if we are to increase the number of people who can benefit from a successful transplant."

Each patient on dialysis costs the NHS about £35,000 a year, while transplanting a kidney costs £20,000 in the first year and £46,000 over five years.