Receiving a heart
Find out what you need to know about donation issues and heart transplantation
Key points
- There are more people waiting for transplants than there are donors
- Hearts can be donated after brain death or after circulatory death
- All donated organs carry some risk, but this is generally lower than the risk posed by your heart disease
- The average wait for heart depends on how unwell you are, on your blood group and on your height and weight
Register to donate
In the UK, around 300-400 people are in need of a heart transplant to transform their lives. Sadly, because of a lack of donors, only 150-200 heart transplants are carried out every year.
Organ donation is when someone has agreed to give a part of their body to someone else who needs it. It’s an amazingly generous act that helps to save thousands of lives a year.
