Scottish Donation and Transplant Group written update: December 2024
Written updates from the meeting of the group held on 20 December 2024.
Deceased organ donation
Update given by:
- Harpreet Matharu, Regional Head of Nursing Organ Donation, NHSBT
Donation performance year-to-date (YTD): April 2024 to September 2024
Last year our NHSBT performance target was 109 donors and actual 120. This is now the target set for this year (April 2024 to March 2025) with YTD on target of 58 proceeding donors. In addition to this there were 12 non-proceeding donors.
The year-to-date authorisation rate is one of the highest nationally at 67%. The referral rate is 97% and Specialist Nurse presence rates in donation conversations remains at 90%. There have only been three missed opportunities in the region.
These key highlights demonstrate the hard work of our Specialist Nurses, Clinicians, National Organ Retrieval teams and hospital staff.
Donation performance Quarter 2: July 2024 to September 2024
The Quarter 2 performance for 2024/25 had 29 proceeding donors, which is one of the highest in the last four years.
There has been a reduction in the eligible pool, this is a national trend. The donation after brain death (DBD) has a variance in the last five years and donation after circulatory death (DCD) has improved.
Quarter 2
|
|
2020-21 |
2021-22 |
2022-23 |
2023-24 |
2024-25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Eligibility |
87 |
55 |
89 |
85 |
69 |
|
DBD |
18 |
12 |
15 |
19 |
12 |
|
DCD |
12 |
11 |
16 |
18 |
17 |
|
Total donors |
30 |
23 |
31 |
37 |
29 |
The referral rate to the Scotland organ donation service has consistently remained high in this three-month period with 98% and this is same number for UK average of all 12 organ donation teams.
The number of potential donor families approached for organ donation is 49 same as Quarter 1, with a 63% combined authorisation rate (DBD and DCD) which is a decrease from Quarter 1 (73%). The most successful route of authorisation remains expressed opt in (88%) and a deemed authorisation rate of 71%.
|
Families approached by authorisation |
|
|---|---|
|
Expressed opt in |
88% (YTD 89%) |
|
Deemed authorisation |
71% (YTD 71%) |
|
ODR opt outs |
1.3 (YTD 2.3%) |
|
Other opt outs |
5 |
The Specialist Nurse team presence when approaching potential organ donor families is one of the lowest teams with a combined rate of 90% (DBD and DCD) in comparison to UK average of 91%. The main reason for this is consultant preference not to approach with the Specialist Nurse which has been more evident with DBD potential donors with 88% and an improvement with potential DCD donors higher at 91%. However, it is important to highlight how far Scotland has come from when SNOD involvement rates were exceedingly low. This is credit to the Specialist Nurses and Clinical Leads to engage and educate units.
Challenges, UK wide, remain with continued reduced Neurological Death Testing (NDT) rate in DBD donors. The UK average is 76% however the Scotland rate for Quarter 2 is 86% which is one of the highest between all 12 teams.
The Scotland team will continue to work closely with the NHS Board Communications, Scottish Government marketing, Organ and Tissue Donation Committee Chairs and recipient centres with promotional planning and awareness raising of organ and tissue donation. This would include the PJ foundation charity which offers support to both donor and recipient families and keen to promote awareness of organ and tissue donation initiatives. Organ and Tissue Donation Week 2024 was a success with over 5,000 more registrations to the NHS Organ Donor Register nationally. The week also involved the Scotland team, NHS colleagues, donor families and recipients climbing Ben Nevis with the UK initiative of turning the five peaks pink across the UK for Organ and Tissue Donation Week
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