Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Eleanor Smith

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

I agree. Choice is the key to making the Bill as successful as possible, as is education. Some people might donate those organs if they knew how the process would work, but there needs to be an element of personal choice. It is our body, at the end of the day, and we should be encouraging people to help others rather than forcing them, which will not be successful.

Members have made the point—I do not want to labour it, but it is important—about reaching out to all communities, including those from ethnic minorities, among whom the number of donors is particularly low at the moment. In fact, shockingly, in March 2017 there were 634 people from the black community in need of organs, and only 72 people on the donor list died and were suitable organ donors. That is a really small proportion.

[Eleanor Smith (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that issue. Our community is experiencing what is called a silent crisis, because of the lack of knowledge and willingness to discuss organ donation with family members and concerns about the integration of the body after death. I take on board what she says—we must be mindful that there is a lack of knowledge among our community, and the Bill would improve that.

[Michelle Donelan]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention.

Only 1% of people a year die in circumstances suitable to allow their organs to be donated. It is important that we have an honest conversation today and do not say that the Bill is the panacea that will solve the problem, and that if someone is on the organ register, they will automatically get a donation. That would give people false hope. That statistic also means that we should potentially review the current regulations on age restrictions for the donation of certain organs. For example, heart valve donations have an age restriction of 60, whereas countries such as Spain just look at the quality of the organ.

The most important mechanism for ensuring that the Bill is as effective as possible is transport infrastructure and investment in staffing. It is no good unless we have enough helicopters, bikes, trained staff and support workers to facilitate the Bill. We must ensure that it does not just help people who live in urban areas. My constituency is very rural in parts, and some areas are harder to get to, but that does not mean that people there should be any less likely to benefit from donations. Other countries that have introduced Bills such as this, including France, Sweden and Bulgaria, have seen a reduction in their organ donation rates partly because of a lack of investment in infrastructure, so that is crucial.

We should be quite bold in reviewing this issue. Some countries have adopted a policy that I admit I was originally very uneasy about, whereby someone who is an organ donor and has not opted out of the system is higher on the priority list to receive a donation. I now think that that is quite fair, because if someone is prepared to give a donation, they should be more likely to receive one.

The UK has one of the lowest donation consent rates in the world, and that is really not good enough. I am hugely supportive of the Bill, but I echo the caution that it depends on the infrastructure, education and support that we give people, so that we can ensure that the Bill is as successful as possible.