Increasing kidney transplantation in Britain: the importance of donor cards, public opinion and medical practice

Abstract

The Department of Health and Social Security has recently spent over three-quarters of a million pounds advertising the merits of kidney donor cards. The advertising campaign stresses that carrying signed cards requesting the removal of kidneys and other organs after death both increases the number of kidneys available and increases the number of kidney transplants that actually take place. This paper examines the relative success of the kidney donor card campaign in Britain and the nature of the relationship between a more widespread distribution of donor cards and the frequency of kidney transplantation. This is done in two main ways: Through a review of the evidence detailing public support expressed in the media and from social surveys (including original empirical work conducted at Bath University). By an analysis of previously unpublished statistical evidence made available by the Department of Health and Social Security. The paper concludes that the battle for public sympathy towards kidney donation has largely been won and the kidney donor card campaign has been a success. However these success perhaps deflect attention away from more important issues in the transplant equation, as the link between card carrying and increased transplantation is neither direct nor simple.

KIE: To increase the number of persons in Great Britain donating kidneys, the Department of Health and Social Security began an advertising campaign in 1984 on the merits of carrying signed donor cards. During the first six months of this effort there was a 42% increase in the number of donors. Public opinion generally favors donation, and doctors and medical staff members should be more willing to raise the issue with patients and their families. Geographical variation in the effect of the campaign requires further exploration, as do issues such as national coordination of transplants, transfer of organs between centers, size of transplant centers, and computerization of records.