A record number of organ transplants were carried out last year, NHS Blood and Transplant revealed today.

Nationally, during 2011/2012, 3,960 transplants were carried out in the UK. The figures from the Organ Donation and Transplantation Activity Report 2012 shows the seventh year of growth in the number of transplants.

The number of deceased organ donors available for transplantation also continues to increase, 1,088 last year – up eight per cent on the previous year.

In West Yorkshire a total of 361 people received an organ transplant during 2011/2012, an increase from 306 during 2010/2011.

In 2011/12, 75 people in West Yorkshire had a kidney transplant from a deceased person, 22 had a living kidney transplants, three people received a kidney and a pancreas, there were four heart transplants, three lung transplants, one heart and lung transplant, 31 liver transplants from a deceased donor, two live liver transplants, one other multi-organ transplant, plus 216 cornea and three sclera (white of the eye) transplants.

Sally Johnson, director of Organ Donation and Transplantation at NHSBT, said: “Since 2007/08, our efforts have been concentrated on getting the right infrastructure in place and working with our partners in hospitals throughout the UK to change clinical practice and give more people the opportunity to donate their organs.

“Huge efforts have been made in hospitals to increase deceased organ donation and the report for 2011/12 details the continuing, overall upward trend in organ donation and transplantation. We remain on target to meet our objective of 50 per cent growth in donation by 2013.”

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one hospital trust which has made huge progress in raising awareness of organ donation.

In 2010 the Foundation Trust set up an organ donation committee, chaired by Dr Paul Cramp, clinical donation champion and intensive care unit consultant anaesthetist at the hospital, to try to increase awareness of transplantation and to boost the number of donors, after it was revealed only seven organ donations had been made since 2005.

Since the start of the campaign organ donation at Bradford Royal Infirmary has increased by 90 per cent. Much of the success is down to utilising specialist nurses, such as Jayne Fisher in Bradford, who have expertise in approaching families who have suffered an unforeseen bereavement.

Dr Cramp has since been appointed at NHS Blood and Transplant’s clinical lead for organ donation in Yorkshire. He said: “We want to make organ donation usual rather than unusual. We want to make everybody aware of end-of-life donation and make it a part of end-of-life care.

“Organ donation is seen as a gift of life. One organ donor has the potential to save seven lives, which is an incredible gift.”

There are 79 people living in the Bradford district who are waiting for an organ – 66 kidney; one kidney and pancreas; two heart; one lung and nine liver.

Mrs Johnson added: “This report shows that things are moving in the right direction, but three people on the waiting list are dying every day without receiving a transplant.

“We need to carry on making people aware of the difference they can make by signing up to the Organ Donor register and discussing their wishes with their family and friends.”

Register as an organ donor at organdonation.nhs.uk or call the NHS Donor Line on 0300 123 23 23.

'I was one of the lucky ones'

Earlier this year a campaign to get more black and Asian people to donate organs in Bradford was a huge success and backed by a 54-year-old Bradford man whose life was transformed by a liver transplant in 2010.
Abrar Hussain, a catering assistant at St Luke’s Hospital and a father-of-three, was 18 when he developed jaundice and the early signs of liver disease.
In 1988 tests revealed an underlying liver complaint which needed regular check-ups and medication to stabilise it. In 2008 doctors discovered Mr Hussain had developed a cancerous tumour and a quarter of his liver was removed but two years later the cancer returned and he was told he would need a liver transplant.
Fortunately for him a donor was found and a successful transplant went ahead. Backing the campaign for more people to sign up to the donor register, he said: “I was one of the lucky ones. To receive a liver transplant so soon after being on the waiting list was a miracle.”