Reportedly there are around 8,000 people waiting for an organ transplant in the UK, and around 1,000 people die each year (three every day) while waiting to receive an organ.

However, despite the desperate need for organs less than a third of us British folk are on the donation list, so the government is trying to get more people to register by starting up a new pilot scheme.

The government’s thinking it that many more people would join the list if the possibility of doing it was directly presented to them.

"There's a variety of reasons why they don't put their name on the organ donor register,” the clinical director for transplantation at the Department of Health states, “but by far the most common is they just don't get round to it."

For a while now, people applying for their driving licence have been asked if they would like to join, but they had the option of completely ignoring the request. Now their options will be to join the list, explain that they are already on the list, or answer the question at another time.

This way, the people who do not wish to answer immediately will be confronted with it again at a later date.

The hope is that this will double the number of people who join the list, and as a result save many more lives.

Have you been thinking about joining the organ donation list, but just never got round to it? Have a look at the UK transplant website.

Labels: driving licence, list, organ transplant, register, UK