Transplant waiting list hits record high
According to the NHS, over 8,000 people are unsure if they will get the organ they need
The NHS has urged urgent public action as transplant waiting lists hit a record high.
As of March this year, 8,096 patients in the UK were on the active transplant waiting list, the highest number since records began.
Kerry Fear, from Yeovil, Somerset was referred to Southampton Hospital at just 6 weeks old and investigative surgery at nine weeks old discovered she only had three heart chambers, two holes in her heart and her two main arteries were the wrong way round.
Kerry had Fontan surgery aged five to help her and over the next four decades had multiple open heart surgeries, pacemakers fitted and procedures to treat heart rhythm problems.
“I've spent a lot of my childhood in and out of hospital, and I've reached a stage where those procedures aren't really working. So the transplant is the next stage.
“I've been 13 months on the list so I'm just waiting for that for that call to happen so that I can change my life hopefully and get out there and do the things that most people can do and take part in things that my family can do, go alongside them and be present in all of these things"
Kerry says a transplant would make a massive difference.
“I hope to just be able to live and do more physical activities than I have my whole life. I’ve got to 50 and I can’t run to the end of the road, my dream is to run a marathon.”
According to a 2025 report, living donors now account for over 40% of all organ donations and only 1,403 people donated organs after death, a 7% decrease on the year before.
Consent and authorisation rates across the UK are also stubbornly low at 59%.
Last year, a total of 173 families overruled their relative’s registered or expressed decision to donate and in a further 520 cases, families did not support donation where the law presumes consent, meaning their loved one had not registered to opt out but also hadn’t expressed any decision.
Under the ‘opt-out’ system a donation can still only go ahead with the family’s support, which is why Kerry says we need to have the conversation now.
“I think the number of donors has gone down, possibly due to less conversations about it and I think less consent, so somebody may have been happy to donate… however, on their death, the family have not consented.
“So the organ donation isn't able to go ahead. What I would say is people need to have more conversations and say that this is their wish with their families, to allow the people living to go ahead with their wish."