Organ donation key messages
Share the need for more organ donors and the importance of confirming your decision using our messages below
Share the need for more organ donors and the importance of confirming your decision on the NHS Organ Donor Register using our messaging below:
Organ donation is the gift of an organ to help someone who needs a transplant. Thousands of lives in the UK are saved or transformed each year by organ transplants.
Organs that can be donated by people who have died include heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, liver and small bowel.
Tissue such as skin, bone and heart valves can also be used to save and improve people’s lives, and corneas can help to restore people’s sight.
If you want to become a donor after you die you could save and improve the lives of up to nine people through organ donation and even more if you also donate tissue.
Someone will die today, waiting for an organ transplant.
There are currently more than 8000 people in need of a transplant to save or improve their lives. In the past year, more than 400 people died because they didn’t get the transplant they needed.
Most of us would accept an organ if we needed one, and you are more likely to need a transplant one day, than you are to being a donor.
More people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are receiving transplants than ever before, however, people with Black and Asian heritage still wait longer than White patients for a transplant.
People can receive a transplant from someone of any ethnicity; however, the most suitable match is likely to come from a donor of the same ethnicity.
If you want to be a donor, being on the NHS Organ Donor Register makes it more likely to happen. Your choice has never been more important.
The NHS Organ Donor Register is the only place to record your decision about organ donation and make your choices clear. Specialist Nurses for Organ Donation will only access the decision you recorded on the Register when end of life care has begun.
You can choose to donate some or all your organs and tissue, and you can amend or withdraw a registration at any time. If there is no recorded decision for you, in the UK your consent may be deemed. Deemed consent means that you have no objection to being a donor providing you have not opted out or are not in an excluded group.
Two minutes now can save up to nine lives.
Confirm your decision on the NHS Organ Donor Register.
It’s the best thing you’ll do today
Visit organdonation.nhs.uk, or via the NHS app in England or Wales, or call 0300 123 23 23.
Find out about organ donation across the rest of the UK: