Travel abroad for organ transplants on the NHS under EU proposal.

Reported January 15, 2009

British patients waiting for an organ transplant could soon travel to other European countries for operations paid for by the NHS, under EU proposals.

Under the plans if an organ became available for transplant in the UK but was not match for any British patients on the waiting list, it could be offered to those waiting in Europe and vice versa.

Single organ donor and waiting list registries are also under consideration and these would run alongside national lists. This would allow doctors to identify the most urgent foreign cases for transplant when organs are not found to be a match for any patient in the UK.

There is a critical shortage of organs in the UK with almost 8,000 people currently waiting for an organ and around 1,000 people die each year on the list while others are not even put forward for transplantation. Gordon Brown has not ruled out changing the law to allow for organs to be taken automatically unless the donor specifically opted out, a system known as presumed consent.

Currently sharing organs around Europe is not systematic and any EU patient is entitled to NHS care paid for by their own Government and UK patients can travel abroad for treatment if there has been prior authorisation from the NHS.

The EU's Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou hopes the Cross-border Healthcare Directive will have its first reading in Europe in April or May and be passed within two years.

Across the EU there are 56,000 people waiting for donor organs and ten people die each day, she said.

"There is a tremendous shortage and this leads eventually to organ tourism which we want to fight. People travel to Asia or other areas to find and buy an organ and it raises all sorts of ethical and safety questions.

"There are often cases where we have an organ available and it is not appropriate to anyone waiting in the home nation but there may be someone abroad who is a match.

"This kind of co-operation has to be encouraged but never to the detriment of the national who is waiting at home. The obligation is to offer good healthcare to their own citizens."

Some countries within Europe already co-operate more closely to ensure they have the largest pool of donor organs available to their patients.

The Eurotransplant International Federation coordinates the exchange of donor organs across the central region of Europe, which includes Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia, and a total population of over 112 million.

Doctors in the UK warned that there are practical difficulties with exchanging organs around the continent because of travel times and the longer the organ is without a blood supply the worse the prospects for the recipient.

Prof Peter Friend, secretary of the British Transplantation Society, said: "It is right that Europe should strive to provide a more unified system but there are logistical constraints so transplantation will predominantly remain a national rather than a European based service."

He said it could prove 'very valuable' to patients who are very difficult to find matches for.