Tories demand full investigation into donor row
By politics.co.uk staff
Andrew Lansley has demanded a full investigation after it emerged an NHS blunder had seen people’s organs wrongly removed.
Health secretary Andy Burnham said the error was highly regrettable, but should not stop people from registering to donate their organs.
The row relates to 21 cases, but there are up to 800,000 people on the UK register whose organ donation wishes were wrongly recorded in 1999.
The mistakes came to light last year when NHS Blood and Transplant wrote to donors to confirm what they intended to donate only to discover much of the information was incorrect.
Mr Burnham told the BBC a review had been commissioned.
“We do need to get to the bottom of it,” he said.
“If people don’t hear from the service, they can be confident their records are correct.”
But Mr Lansley, shadow health secretary, wants a more thorough investigation.
“My personal view is that we should always have the personal consent,” he told the BBC.
“Clearly if that has not happened, there needs to be a full investigation and we need to find out what has gone wrong and make sure that does not happen again.
“I do hope people will continue to see organ donation as something they can positively and altruistically do to help others,” he added.
