Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill

Trudy Harrison Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

This private Member’s Bill has my full support. It was introduced by the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) and inspired by the Daily Mirror campaign to find an organ donor for a little boy from Cheshire, Max Johnson, whom we have heard so much about this afternoon from the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and many others.

In preparing for this debate, I was saddened to learn of just how many people lose their lives due to the lack of a suitable donor. In adopting this Bill, England would have a similar system to Wales, essentially an opt-out system where consent would be presumed unless otherwise stated.

There is already overwhelming public support for organ donation. According to the NHS Blood and Transplant website, over 80% of adults in England say they would definitely donate or would consider donating their organs, but only 37% of the UK population have registered as a donor on the NHS organ donor register.

While the then nine-year-old Max was the inspiring story behind the Daily Mirror campaign, at any one time there are more than 6,000 people waiting to have life-saving transplants. I spoke to one such person, a chap in my local West Cumberland Hospital, during his dialysis treatment in our new renal unit just last month. There are still many desperately sad accounts of lives being lost, with families destroyed and children without their parents.

The Johnson family spent almost eight months on a transplant ward; they said it was a “rollercoaster” of a year, sometimes worrying that their son’s weight might have dropped too low to continue on the transplant list. After 196 days of waiting, a tragically fatal car crash resulted in a suitable heart donation from a little girl, Keira Ball. I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Barnsley Central, and of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) in his emotional speech, in expressing admiration for Keira’s family.

Being a mum of four daughters myself, I was devastated to learn of other accounts, particularly that of Jade Gulliver’s sister. Jade, a mum to two little boys, died at just 27 while waiting for a liver transplant. She had viral hepatitis. Her sister said:

“You hear about transplants on the telly, but you never expect it to happen to someone you know. She kept getting sicker and sicker. I can’t explain what it was like—waiting every day for a phone call that never came. We take the boys to the bench we have in Jade’s memory for birthdays and anniversaries and we show them pictures.”

Jade’s sister went on:

“I will be the first to admit, before this tragedy, I also was almost ignorant to organ donation. Now I want to do everything in my power to prevent this from happening, so that no more families have to go through what our family has been through, and is still going through.”

It is not at all difficult to opt in. In fact, while preparing for my speech last night I decided that, in order to speak with any conviction and to be in an honest position to encourage the country to take the decision to donate, I at least needed to ensure that I had joined the register, so that is exactly what I did. But what dawned on me at that time, working late in my office here in Parliament and enjoying a mug of coffee and looking forward to getting back up to Cumbria to see my family and friends at the weekend, was how relatively relaxed I felt about making a decision that could only come into effect after my death. Online, I made a choice to donate all the bits of me that could ever be useful, and was rewarded for my choice by being informed that my decision could improve or save up to nine lives. I could instead have individually chosen my heart, lungs, kidney, liver, corneas, pancreas, tissue or small bowel, or any combination of them.

After I had registered, the website encouraged me to take three next steps to make clear my decision to my loved ones. It gave me advice on how to introduce the conversation, how to explain that my decision could improve or even save a life and how to tell them why and how I had arrived at my decision. I have had this conversation many times at home; it is a popular topic around our kitchen table with my four daughters. Personally, I have a positive outlook on life and understand that the only certainty in life is death, but it is a much more difficult to have that conversation with my husband. We are all different. One thing is sure: if the worst had happened, and if my daughters and husband, or my mum and dad, had been forced to make that decision shortly after my sudden death, it would have been very difficult for them.

For me, last night, registering was a simple choice, made without any doubt in my mind, but it is important to note that of the 500,000 deaths each year in this country, only around 5,000 people die in circumstances, or from conditions, that mean their organs could be considered for transplantation. I am sure the Minister will agree that the Bill will significantly improve the chances of finding a suitable donor for the 6,100-plus people currently waiting for that phone call to tell them of a suitable donor who could improve or save their life. It is a tragedy that three people will die today because of the lack of a donor.

The Bill seeks to improve and save lives, but it also seeks to take out some of the decision making at a time when families are suffering the worst possible ordeal of losing a loved one. There are nearly 25 million people on the NHS organ donor register, and such high rates of voluntary donation should be applauded, but I realise that there will be people who, for a range of religious or other reasons, do not want to become full or even partial donors. That choice must be respected. I hope that the Minister can reassure the House that opting out will be possible under the Bill. We know that the numbers of registrations have significantly increased following public awareness campaigns—I hope that this afternoon’s debate will result in such an increase—but that is still not enough to prevent the unnecessary deaths of an average of three people each and every day. Thousands of lives are needlessly being lost, and in thinking of all those who continue to suffer and the inevitable devastation for their family and friends, and in the belief that the Bill will save and improve so many lives, I will be supporting it through its parliamentary stages. I hope that colleagues across the House will do the same.