Ban on private transplants will create fairer system of assigning scarce organs to patients on waiting list

This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

All private organ transplants are to be banned in the UK to avoid a perception that patients, including those from overseas, can jump the queue for scarce donor organs by paying for treatment.

The government said today that it will take immediate steps to implement the recommendations of an independent report published by Elisabeth Buggins, former chair of the Organ Donation Taskforce. She recommended banning private organ transplants from 1 October.

The ban will stop foreign patients living outside the UK paying to receive organs donated by British people.

Earlier this year it was revealed the livers of 50 British NHS donors were transplanted into foreign patients over a two-year period, with the bulk of the operations taking place at King's College hospital and the Royal Free hospital in London.

Of the patients, 40 were from Greece or Cyprus, while the remainder included patients from non-EU countries such as China, Libya and the United Arab Emirates.

Health minister Ann Keen said: "We accept her recommendations and will now take these forward to ensure a UK system that is fair and transparent and one which patients and potential donors can have trust and confidence in."

Buggins said she had found no evidence of wrongdoing in the way organs were allocated to patients, but that "there is a perception that private payments may unfairly influence access to transplant, so they must be banned."

She added: "Confidence in the transplant system should increase once money is removed from the equation, decisions are transparent and accountability clear; confidence we know is necessary if the number of organ donors is to rise to match the best in Europe. I would encourage everyone to join the organ donor register; a promise that is quick to make and of such lasting benefit to others."

The new ban will also apply to people from EU countries being treated as private patients in the UK under financial arrangements between EU governments and individual UK hospitals.

Those contracts will now be agreed on a national basis between the NHS and EU governments, to remove incentives for individual hospitals and surgeons.

The UK government will seek approval from administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to bring in the ban in October.

Buggins also recommended:

• establishing a new implementation group to work with NHS Blood and Transplant, and commissioners of transplantation to monitor referrals from overseas.

• a new liver allocation scheme to build greater transparency into the allocation process.

• developing Department of Health guidance for transplant centres to provide clarification on the eligibility criteria for people from abroad.

Last year, 3,504 organ transplants were carried out in the UK from 1,844 deceased and living donors.

But there are 8,054 people on the active waiting list for a transplant and a further 2,400 who are currently too ill to join the list. About 1,000 people a year, or three every day, die while waiting.

Anthony Warrens, spokesman for Kidney Research UK, and a professor of renal and transplantation medicine at Imperial College London, said: "This report highlights the desperate shortage of organ donors, especially for kidneys.

"A total 90% of patients on the waiting list are waiting for a kidney transplant (7,000 patients) and over three million people are at risk of chronic kidney disease."