Organ Transplantation

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to reduce any waste of organs for transplantation arising from inadequate co-ordination of the process and the extent of out-of-hours and weekend services.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the National Organ Retrieval Service—NORS—provides continuous 24/7 cover. I understand there have been two exceptional occasions when a NORS team could not be provided. Contingency arrangements enable other teams to stand in when needed or for local kidney transplant centres to be reimbursed for retrieving from kidney-only donors. NHS Blood and Transplant is also considering a tariff to fund National Organ Retrieval Service teams willing to provide additional cover.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Can the Minister confirm for me a statement that was made when I was chairman of one of the London teaching hospitals—that when you die your body is no longer your own? That is a highly significant point in the case of people who carry donor cards but whose relatives reject them. Can he also assure me that they will do something to ensure that when potential donors come to accident and emergency at weekends due to accidents, the retrieval team is alerted to the possibility that such organs—each of which is very precious to the recipient—may be available?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is a well established principle of law that there is no property in a corpse. This means that, as a general rule, the law does not regard a corpse as property protected by rights. In other words, there can be no ownership of a dead body. However, the law does prescribe what may lawfully be done with the body of a deceased person. For example, a person can say while they are alive what they would like to happen to their body after death, such as donation of organs. My noble friend raises an extremely important point about A&E. The number of donors from A&E units is improving but it is generally recognised that it had to because performance was not good. Since 2007-08 there has been a 388 per cent increase in donations from emergency medicine, which is good news, but there is much more that could be done. The transitional steering group that we have set up under the chairmanship of Chris Rudge is looking at that area as a priority.