June 2020

Deemed consent for organ and tissue donation in England

On 20 May 2020, the law around organ and tissue donation for transplantation changed in England. 

Under the new deemed consent system (also known as an ‘opt-out system') all adults are considered as possible organ and tissue donor when they die, unless they have recorded a decision not to donate or are in an excluded group.

Your family will still be approached; your faith, beliefs, and culture will continue to be respected; you will still have a choice about whether or not you wish to become a donor.

You can find out more and register your decision to opt-in or opt-out by joining the NHS Organ Donor Register and sharing your decision with your family.

Get the facts about organ donation from NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) to help you decide.

NHS Organ Donor Register

Watch this animation from NHSBT for more information.

The HTA's role in deceased organ and tissue donation

Deceased organ and tissue donation for transplantation means donating your organs or tissue to someone in need of a transplant after you die.

Our role in deceased organ and tissue donation involves providing advice and guidance to transplant professionals on how the law around organ donation in England works.

We do this by publishing a Code of Practice. We updated our Code of Practice F: Donation of solid organs and tissue for transplantation, to reflect how the new deemed consent system will affect practice.

We have also updated our guidance for the public on how the new law works. For example, we have a new guide to Code of Practice F to explain how the deemed consent system works and what it means for you.

We have also published a new leaflet that explains the consent system for organ and tissue donation in each UK country (England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland).   
 
A full list of all the guidance that we provide for members of the public can be found on our website.  
 
If you have any questions, please get in touch with us: enquiries@hta.gov.uk.

Find out more about deceased organ and tissue donation

Body and brain donation

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, medical schools and brain banks have been unable to accept body or brain donations.

Medical schools and brain banks are now looking to resume donation services, though there may be limitations for some time.

If you are interested in donating your body, please contact your local medical school for further advice and guidance.

You can find the contact details for your local medical school using the search facility on our website.

If you are interested in donating your brain, you will need to contact a brain bank. A list of brain banks can be found on our website.

For more information on how body or brain donation works, please visit our page on body donation or our page on brain donation.

Read our guidance for the public

Join our public panel

As a newsletter subscriber, we know the work of the HTA is important to you.

You can play a part in improving our work by joining our public panel. In doing so, you will help us to produce useful information for the public, so that we can better inform people of our work; which is to ensure that human tissue and organs are used safely, ethically, and with proper consent.

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Sign up below! Typically, we may ask for your feedback when publishing new material. This could be in the form of a guide to a new medical technique that people are talking about, an update to our policies, or anything else that we would like your opinion on.

Recently, we collaborated with our public panel to create information on the cryopreservation of bodies after death.

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