Facts
- Currently, between 7000 and 8,000 people in the UK need a transplant, currently rising by about 8% a year.
- Over the last five years, UK Department of Health funding - £4.16million in 2006/07 - has supported a number of initiatives to increase donor rates.
- Living donor and non-heartbeating donor rates have risen significantly in recent years. However, the rate of donation by heartbeating (death established through brain stem testing) donors (the main source of donor organs) has remained steady at best.
- Over 14 million people - some 24% of the population - have now registered on the UK Organ Donor Register.
- In the UK between 1 April 2006 and 31 March 2007:
3,086 organ transplants were carried out, thanks to the generosity of 1,495 donors. 949 lives were saved in the UK through a heart, lung, liver or combined heart/lungs, liver/kidney, liver/pancreas or heart/kidney transplant.
- A total of 2,137 patients received a kidney, pancreas or combined kidney/pancreas transplant.
- A further 2,402 people had their sight restored through a cornea transplant.
- A record number of non-heartbeating donor kidney transplants took place and accounted for one in seven of all kidney transplants.
- The highest number of combined kidney/pancreas transplants took place (164, representing a 53% increase on 2005-2006).
- Living donor kidney transplants are increasing - 461 in 2003-2004, 475 in 2004-2005, 589 in 2005-2006, and 690 in 2006-2007, and now represent more than one in four of all kidney transplants.
- At the end of March 2007, 7,234 patients were listed as actively waiting for a transplant.
Read more about this topic: Organ Donation Taskforce
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