News Release
19 October 2010
NHSBT response to Professor Sir Gordon Duff’s independent
review of the NHS Organ Donor Register
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) welcomes Professor Sir Gordon
Duff’s independent review into mis-recording of data on the Organ
Donor Register (ODR), and his finding that the issue was handled
with the appropriate level of urgency, diligence and sensitivity.
We worked closely with the review team to provide detailed
information on how some registrants’ preferences for organ donation
were wrongly recorded on the ODR and the actions we took to redress
the situation. We are pleased that the information provided has led
Professor Sir Gordon to conclude that appropriate action was taken
and that our handling of the error, and contact with those affected
by it, demonstrated our commitment to openness and transparency.
NHSBT sincerely regrets that the error was not uncovered earlier and
that the donations of 25 individuals were affected by it. We would
like to take this opportunity to reiterate our unreserved apologies
to the families of those people.
After discovering the error, the NHSBT Board carried out its own
investigations resulting in a detailed remedial action plan, which
included steps to correct automatically a large number of the
affected ODR records and to improve the robustness of the ODR and
the mechanisms through which people can register. We are progressing
well with this action plan.
We accept in full the recommendations of Professor Sir Gordon Duff,
which will contribute significantly to strengthening the ODR and
public confidence in it as a way to record organ donation wishes.
Since the error related to the way in which we received data from
one of our partners, our immediate focus has been to take forward
those actions that relate to our working arrangements with partner
organisations.
Professor Sir Gordon acknowledges in his review that the existing
ODR infrastructure was not originally designed for the purposes that
it is currently used. Whilst our remedial action plan and a number
of Professor Sir Gordon’s recommendations will ensure that the
Register is robust and reliable in the short to medium term, we will
take forward as a matter of urgency the scoping and design of a new
ODR, as recommended. Our long-term aim is to operate the ODR as an
interactive database that will allow registrants to check and amend
their own records. It would also be consistently used by authorised
health professionals to check the donation preferences of any
potential organ donors, allowing the Register to help save the lives
of the three people who die every day in the UK due to the shortage
of organs for transplantation.
For a copy of the full report by Professor Sir Gordon Duff, please
click
here.
For further information, please contact the NHSBT press office on
0117 969 2444, at
pressoffice@nhsbt.nhs.uk or out of hours on 07659 133583.
Notes to Editors
- NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is a Special Health Authority in the NHS. It is the organ donor organisation for the UK and is responsible for matching and allocating donated organs. Its remit also includes the provision of a reliable, efficient supply of blood and associated services to the NHS in England and North Wales
- To join the NHS Organ Donor Register call the Donor Line on 0300 123 23 23, go to www.organdonation.nhs.uk