Organ donor rules tightened in UK

[Angel]

New legislation governing the way human organs are donated and stored represents an 'important milestone' for patients and their families, according to the body set up to police the revised rules.

Under the terms of the Human Tissue Act, which comes into force tomorrow, consent will now need to be given before organs or tissue can be removed, stored or used from a person's body.

Those who fail to comply with the rules could face up to three years in prison, with both research and post-mortem procedures governed by the new act.

The changes, introduced in the wake of organ-retention scandals at Liverpool's Alder Hey hospital and the Bristol Royal Infirmary, mean that consent will now be the 'underlying principle' on which medical decisions are based, according to the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) which will be responsible for overseeing the new rules.

'This is an important milestone for the HTA, and for patients, the families and professionals,' said HTA chief executive Adrian McNeil.

Under the terms of the new legislation, the regulatory authority will be required to issue licenses to those establishments that handle body parts, including those that carry out post-mortem examinations and places that store tissue for research purposes.

The extensive reforms will also make it illegal to collect DNA samples from a person without first acquiring their consent, although police investigations will be exempt from the new rules where a court order requires analysis to be conducted.

Meanwhile, the new legislation will give hope to the thousands of people in the country currently waiting to receive an organ transplant.

Transplant surgeons have expressed hope that the number of organs available for donation will increase following changes which mean that relatives will no longer have the automatic right to prevent doctors using organs from a dead family member who had expressed their wish to donate.

Chris Rudge, managing director of the charity UK Transplant, said the wishes of around one in ten possible donors were overturned under the current system.

'Many more people could receive a life-saving transplant with the donors' wishes being given priority,' he said, although he stressed that if families strongly objected to donation in certain cases then organs might not be removed from a dead patient.