Max & Keira's 300 Lifesavers

Donors who gave organs since new law one year ago

- Martin Bagot And Jeremy Armstrong

TODAY marks a year since Max and Keira’s law came in and in that time almost 300 people have donated organs for life-saving transplants, despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic.

The historic opt-out rule, which finally happened after years of campaigning by the Mirror, has been credited with helping keep organ swaps going during the Covid crisis.

Specialist nurses had to have heartbreaking conversations over the phone with grieving relatives who were unable to attend hospitals when their relatives died.

But the families of 296 deceased adults consented to go ahead with donation despite their loved one not expressing a preference during their lifetime. The opt-out rule considers everyone donors unless they or their relatives request not to be.

It resulted in 714 successful transplants. NHS Blood and Transplant medical director John Forsythe said: “This past year since Max and Keira’s Law came into effect in England has been completely unprecedented in the history of the NHS, as well as in wider society.

“All the careful plans we’d made for the introduction of the law had to be quickly reset.

“In the early days of the pandemic, many of our specialist organ donation nurses volunteered to help care for patients with Covid in intensive care. Training and preparations for the new law had to be fitted around this. To see such a positive and heart-warming response from the public, especially those families facing the very worst news, in some of the hardest circumstances, is such an incredible testament to the strength of those families.

“Many have told us how organ donation offered comfort in an otherwise tragic situation.”