LONDON (AFP) — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday signalled his backing for an "opt-out" system for organ donation to help thousands of patients waiting for life-saving transplants.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Brown said the fact that 1,000 people in Britain die each year while awaiting transplants was an "avoidable human tragedy we can and must address".
He backed an overhaul of the current system -- where individuals elect to be placed on the donor register -- to one of "presumed consent" that automatically includes everyone, unless they explicity opt out.
"A different consent system, more like the one used in Spain, could serve to increase donation levels significantly," he said.
"Of course, any 'opt-out' system would -- in cases where the potential donor is not on the register -- leave the final decision with the family: that is only right and proper," he added.
"But a system of this kind seems to have the potential to close the aching gap between the potential benefits of transplant surgery and the limits imposed by our current system of consent."
Brown said the health ministry was to start a public consultation about a move to a different system.
There are currently more than 8,000 people waiting organ transplants in Britain, but only 3,000 operations are carried out each year, according to the government.
Some 14.9 million people are on the organ donor register -- about 24 percent of the population -- but rates of actual donors lag well behind other countries.
Britain has about 13 donors per million people compared with 22 per million in France, 25 per million in the United States and about 35 per million in Spain, which has been held to be a model for the system.
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